Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Does Heart Surgery Benefit Elderly With Diabetes?

It has been known that revascularization (that is, surgery or angioplasty) to restore blood flow to the heart muscle can benefit angina (heart-related chest pain) in elderly patients with symptomatic coronary artery disease (CAD).

A recent study, conducted on elderly patients over a period of 4 years, reported that diabetic patients benefited similarly as non-diabetics from revascularization in terms of survival rate although they had a worse outcome than non-diabetics in terms of hypertension, risk factors and cardiovascular events of heart failure and heart attacks.

Therefore, diabetic patients should be given the choice of revascularization to improve their symptomatic and overall outcomes.

No comments:

Post a Comment