|
|
Article: A better heart attack therapy.(use of angioplasty to treat heart attacks)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- May 6, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
If you have a heart attack, where you live may determine whether you survive. That's because you might wind up at a hospital where you get the best lifesaving therapy available, or at one limited to offering the second-best treatment. This makes life and death little more than "a matter of chance and geography," lamented Johns Hopkins Hospital cardiologist Thomas Aversano and colleagues recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It especially galls Aversano because his research suggests there's a better way.
The problem is this: When heart attack patients are rushed to the nearest hospital, they may be hurried to the cardiac "cath lab," where a ...