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July
9, 2011 -- 7:05pm PDT
Are Stents Beings Overused? How
Much and Where?
Dr.
Paul Chan sat
down with me recently to talk about
the study published this week in JAMA that he served
as lead author on. The article, "Appropriateness
of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention." has
generated hundreds of news reports about "unnecessary
stenting", "overuse of angioplasty", etc.
In my exclusive
interview with Dr. Chan, we talked about the real
meaning of this study, what it was meant to do
(benchmark the use of PCI in the U.S.) and how
it's being (mis) interpreted by the press (I'll
be discussing this aspect in a subsequent post).
Dr. Chan also discusses the field of
cardiology, its self-reflection, shown in studies
like this one, and also some ways in which clinical
cardiologists, referring physicians and...patients(!)...need
to be brought into the decision-making process. Also,
a fact which I haven't seen discussed much in the
press: the NCDR is sending member hospitals quarterly
reports of inappropriate procedures, mapped to the
Appropriate Use Criteria, so they can look at their
rates and improve upon them in very specific ways.
Read
the entire interview here .
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