Technique to prevent future heart attacks found

Washington: A new research has shown that patients who have had emergency heart attack treatment with heart artery stenting and have significant narrowings in their other untreated arteries- can take advantage from additional stenting to help stop future attacks.

The findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the European Society of Cardiology included 4000 patients, 713 of which were from the UK. The study shows that further stenting for additional arteries should be the standard treatment for heart attack patients whenever feasible. A stent is a tiny mesh tube that is inserted into affected, or clogged, arteries and expands to keep them open, reducing the chance of further heart attacks by allowing the blood to flow more freely.

According to the study, patients who underwent routine additional stenting had a lower risk of further heart attacks or heart-related death: 7.8 per cent versus 10.5 per cent over five years. They also had less than one-fifth the risk of needing further emergency treatment for their heart arteries in the future. Similar benefits were seen regardless of whether the second procedure was performed as an in-patient or within six weeks as an outpatient.

Over 700 UK patients took part in the UK investigations led by Rob Storey, Professor of Cardiology at the University of Sheffield and Academic Director and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist in the Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery Directorate at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Storey, a member of the executive team running the study, said, "We have made huge strides in the treatment of heart attack over the last 20 years with the development of new drugs and new stents continuously improving the effectiveness of heart artery stenting. This study shows that further stenting should be the standard treatment for these patients whenever feasible."

"The results of our additional analysis shows that the dominant UK practice of bringing patients back as an outpatient for their second procedure was just as beneficial as performing the second procedure in hospital at the time of the initial hospital admission, since the benefits accrued over many years," he added.