BALTIMORE, MD — April 17, 2002 — Heart attack patients may be better off with balloon angioplasty to open blocked blood vessels than with clot-busting drugs, even if their hospital lacks a cardiac surgery program, according to a Johns Hopkins-led study.
The Atlantic Cardiovascular Patient Outcomes Research Trial (C-PORT) looked at 451 heart attack patients admitted to 11 hospitals in Maryland and Massachusetts. The hospitals were given temporary waivers for this study to perform angioplasty even though they had no cardiac surgery capability. In most states, angioplasty may only be performed at hospitals with cardiac surgery programs in the event of complications that require more invasive treatment. Patients were randomly assigned to get an angioplasty or to be treated with clot-busting drugs.
Results, reported in the April 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that the combined incidence of death, repeat heart attacks or strokes was lowered by 40 percent for the angioplasty patients six weeks (11 percent versus 18 percent) and six months (12 percent versus 20 percent) later. In addition, the angioplasty group had a shorter stay in the hospital, averaging four and one-half days compared to six days for the drug group.
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