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May 15th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TUESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) — After patients undergo heart
procedures to open blocked arteries, it may not be useful to give them
treadmill stress tests with echocardiograms if they don’t have symptoms
such as chest pain or shortness of breath, a new study suggests.
“There are very large populations of post-angioplasty and post-bypass
patients; screening asymptomatic patients probably isn’t useful,” said
lead researcher and cardiologist Dr. Thomas Marwick, of the Cleveland
Clinic.
Identifying at-risk patients doesn’t improve their outcomes even if
they have another procedure, Marwick added. “We can identify risk better
than we can treat it,” he said.
Heart problems after these procedures are common and include impaired
blood flow to the heart and worsening heart function, the researchers
noted.
Guidelines of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart
Association recommend stress imaging tests in symptomatic patients after
revascularization, but testing patients without symptoms “is more
controversial,” the researchers noted.
The report was published in the May 14 online edition of the
Archives of Internal Medicine.
To determine the effectiveness of stress testing after
revascularization, Marwick’s team gave echocardiogram stress tests to
2,105 patients who didn’t have symptoms.
Among these patients, 40 percent had previous heart attacks, 54 percent
had an angioplasty and 46 percent had bypass surgery to open blocked heart
arteries.
The test revealed that 262 patients were at high risk for a heart
attack. Of these, 88 had another procedure to unblock arteries.
Over almost six years of follow-up, 97 patients died. These deaths were
associated with heart problems whether patients had stress tests early —
less than two years after an angioplasty or less than five years after
bypass surgery — or later following a procedure.
“Importantly, patients identified as high risk did not have more
favorable outcomes if they had repeat revascularization,” Marwick
said.
The researchers concluded that a routine stress test that evaluates
exercise capacity is sufficient to identify at-risk patients.
Standard stress tests involve monitoring a patient’s blood pressure
during exercise.
Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of
California, Los Angeles, commented that “there has been increased interest
in whether the used of stress testing in asymptomatic patients with
coronary artery disease after revascularization procedures can detect
individuals at increased risk of subsequent events and be used to improve
clinical outcomes.”
This new study showed that in patients without symptoms, exercise
echocardiographic stress testing did identify patients both early and late
after revascularization at double the risk of dying, he said.
“Given that this testing provides independent prognostic information,
further studies are needed to determine whether the findings from this
testing is or is not useful for improving clinical outcomes,” Fonarow
said.
Stress testing combined with imaging can cost between $800 and $2,400
per test. “So, determining the comparative effectiveness of managing
asymptomatic patients with or without stress testing is of considerable
importance,” he said.
More information
The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about types of stress testing.
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