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Article: STUDY FAULTS WIDE USE OF BYPASS SURGERY
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- August 10, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1988 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Coronary bypass surgery - an operation undergone annually
by nearly 300,000 Americans -- provides little or no advantage in
long-term survival compared with drug treatment for clogged blood
vessels supplying the heart, a major study has found.
When the researchers compared patients who had bypass surgery
with those who received drug treatment, they found that after five
years, a larger percentage of patients in the bypass group had
survived. By 10 to 12 years, however, the survival advantage in the
surgery group had nearly evaporated.
The finding, to be published tomorrow in The New England
Journal of Medicine, is believed to have widespread implications
for the $6 billion-a-year ...