Is stenting a better treatment for patients with stable angina then medical therapy alone?
Coronary artery disease (blockages or narrowings in the arteries of the heart) is still the number one cause of death in this country. It is common for individuals who previously were entirely well to suddenly succumb to an unexpected heart attack or end up in our intensive care units quite ill. But many individuals have gradual narrowings of the arteries of the heart which do not produce a heart attack (or “myocardial infarction”) but result in oppressive chest discomfort with exertion, commonly called “angina”. Sometimes this only occurs with unusual exertion such as changing a tire in a snowstorm, but often it results in angina with more common activities such as walking up the hill or carrying packages. Often such patients are taken to the cardiac catheterization laboratory where an angiogram reveals severe narrowings in one or more arteries which are then treated with bypass surgery or, more commonly these days, with dilatation of the narrow part of the artery and placement of one
