Study: Heart attacks less deadly when doctor’s away

Cardiologists used to worry their patients would suffer when they left to attend conferences. Now, a new Harvard study suggests doctors should worry more when they’re on the job.

The study, published Friday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that patients nationwide who had a heart attack during the biggest interventional cardiology conference of the year fared better than those who got sick before or after it.

Either it was a statistical fluke, or interventional cardiologists — who insert stents to open blocked arteries — are sometimes doing their patients more harm than good.

“I’ve always wanted to believe that any influence I had on anyone was a positive influence,” said interventional cardiologist Kirk Garrat, president of the organization that runs the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting.

In the study, researchers looked at the 30-day survival rates of Medicare patients who had heart attacks during the five-day event. They found that an additional 1.5% of patients survived heart attacks that occurred during the convention compared with the weeks before and after, said study leader Anupam Jena, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The difference accounted for thousands of lives saved and couldn’t be explained by the number of emergency stents patients received.

Researchers found an additional 1.5% of patients survived heart attacks that occurred during the convention.