Is this stent necessary? Is this angioplasty inappropriate? Is this cardiologist uncertain if the procedure will help? Ever since the Appropriate Use Criteria for Coronary Revascularization were published, the three category labels of “appropriate,” “uncertain,” and “inappropriate” have confused the profession, press and population at large. The issue of definitions had still not been addressed in the most recent update of the AUC.
So (drumroll, please) yesterday, new categories were approved by the ACC Appropriateness Use Criteria Working Group. The new terminology will be “Appropriate,” “May Be Appropriate”(which replaces “Uncertain”), and “Rarely Appropriate” (which replaces “Inappropriate”). Continue reading

Earlier today, the opening day of EuroPCR, Dr. Bernard De Bruyne presented
Forgive the perverse Shakespearean pun in the title but, as the Bard wrote: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” My topic is pretty much the polar opposite of roses, but the whole concept of labels and what we call things has become increasingly important. It’s one that I touched on in
The question of the day, regarding whether or not to stent a coronary artery, is now being brought to the forefront by the U.S. government in the form of a
Dr. Paul Chan
Dr. Ralph Brindis is the Immediate Past President of the American College of Cardiology and helmed the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) since its inception in 1997 — this is the registry that was the source for the data analyzed and reported in yesterday’s JAMA study, “

