Heart doctors overstate benefits of procedures for stable chest pain

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Heart doctors overstate benefits of procedures for stable chest pain

By Will Boggs MD NEW YORK (Reuters Health) â€" Cardiologists sometimes overstate the benefits of an invasive procedure for chronic angina and patients make decisions based on what cardiologists tell them. Symptoms of angina, such as chest pain, arise from clogged arteries in the heart and may improve faster with so-called percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) than with medication. Evidence suggests, however, that when angina is stable - that is, when it occurs predictably, like after a certain amount of exercise - then PCI does not reduce the risk of death or heart attack. In the first study, a team led by Dr. Sarah L. Goff from Tufts University School of Medicine in Springfield, Massachusetts analyzed conversations about PCI between 20 cardiologists and 40 patients with stable coronary artery disease.

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