Study: Stents do little for chest pain

MINNEAPOLIS — A study of 200 heart patients in the United Kingdom shocked the international cardiology community Thursday when it reported that patients who had stents put in to treat nonemergency chest pain showed about the same improvements as patients who got a “sham” placebo procedure.

The findings from the first-ofits-kind study contradicted widespread assumptions that using the metal mesh tubes to prop open clogged arteries would allow patients to walk longer on a treadmill by hastening blood flow to the muscles that make the heart pump.

The peer-reviewed study, published Thursday in the medical journal Lancet, found that patients with stable chest pain who got a stent could tolerate running on a treadmill for an extra 28 seconds, on average, six weeks after the procedure.

Patients who got a placebo procedure, but no stent, improved their treadmill tolerance by 12 seconds after six weeks. The difference was statistically insignificant.

Doctors, however, were quick to note that the study doesn’t change the thinking about the use of stents in medical emergencies.

Most stents are placed in patients with unstable blockages or heart attacks, whereas the Lancet study focused on stent placements in patients with stable blockages but episodic chest pain, or “angina.”

“If you’re having a heart attack, a stent is lifesaving,” said Dr. Michael Miedema, a preventive cardiologist with the Minneapolis Heart Institute. “That hasn’t changed at all.”