
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993                   TAG: 9311110040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

STUDY FINDS ANGIOPLASTY RIVALS SURGERY

A major study concludes that nonsurgical angioplasty is just as safe and effective as bypass operations for people with advanced coronary artery disease. The finding could influence the treatment of 100,000 heart patients annually.

Together, angioplasty and bypass surgery are performed on more than 550,000 Americans each year. The study released Wednesday is the largest head-to-head comparison.

The $8.5 million federally funded study was conducted on 392 men and women who had blockages in two or more of the arteries that feed their hearts. These buildups are the main cause of chest pain and heart attacks.

Angioplasty uses balloons threaded into the heart with a catheter to squeeze open narrowed arteries. Bypass requires open-heart surgery so surgeons can detour blood around the blockages with pieces of artery taken from elsewhere in the body.

While angioplasty is much less grueling and, at least initially, less expensive, it is now used almost exclusively on people with a single blocked artery. Bypass is reserved largely for more complicated cases involving several blocked arteries.

"The impetus was to find out whether angioplasty is a viable alternative to bypass for multivessel disease," said Dr. Spencer B. King III of Emory University, who directed the study.

After three years of follow-up, he concluded that it is a reasonable choice. Overall, three-quarters of the patients in both treatment groups were doing well. They had not suffered heart attacks or showed signs of seriously reduced blood flow to their hearts. - Associated Press

by CNB