Coronary bypass rates drop (USA)

Think of it as bypassing the bypass. U.S. heart patients have been less likely in the past decade to undergo surgery to install a substitute vessel around a clogged coronary artery, with many patients getting a less invasive alternative procedure. Coronary bypass operations decreased by 38 percent per capita in U.S. adults between 2001 and 2008, researchers report in the May 4 Journal of the American Medical Association. Meanwhile, angioplasty procedures - in which a doctor threads a catheter to the heart to open a blockage using a balloon - have stayed nearly constant, with the per capita rate dipping only 4 percent over that time. These catheters nearly always deliver a coated mesh cylinder called a stent, which props open the vessel from the inside. The study's authors calculated the rates by analyzing a national sample more than 5,000 coronary fixes.