The frequency of heart bypass surgery has plummeted in recent years, a product of Americans leading healthier lifestyles and doctors adopting other treatments for blocked arteries.
As HealthDay News reports, a study to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that the number of heart patients who received bypass surgery dropped 38 percent from 2001 to 2008.
Instead, many patients are getting a procedure known as balloon angioplasty, which entails a catheter being slipped into the artery with an inflated balloon. Typically, doctors also install a stent that prevents the artery from narrowing and becoming more susceptible to dangerous blockages. While balloon angioplasty once carried a high risk of complications, the procedure has grown more popular because of innovations in the past decade.
But the study’s authors worry that the declining popularity of bypass surgery means that some patients for whom the procedure is appropriate are receiving other treatments.
“Patients need to be aware that [heart bypass] can be a good treatment option, and it’s gotten better,” Dr. Peter W. Groeneveld, one of the study’s authors and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, told HealthDay. “There have been several innovations that have made the recovery time much less than it used to be.”
“The worry,” he added, “is there are patients who really who should be getting [bypass surgery] that aren’t getting it.”
Much of the drop in the surgery, however, is attributed to lower rates of smoking and other healthy lifestyle changes. Doctors also are more effectively treating many of the conditions that eventually lead to heart disease and arterial blockages, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.
The decrease in bypass surgery has contributed to a 15 percent drop overall in surgical procedures to clear coronary blockages.
