Angioplasty’s Quickly Becoming Most Overused Surgery, Many Without Merit

A recent study has found that doctors in the United States are greatly overusing angioplasty surgery on their patients. According to the study’s findings approximately 600,000 angioplasties were performed last year, of which only 70% were performed on heart attack victims.

While angioplasties for heart attack victims and critical cases are completely fine, the study found that of the 30% of non-heart attack cases only 50% of Angioplasties were “OK” while 38% were “questionable” and 12% were deemed wildly inappropriate.

The research comes on the heels of a 2007 study which found that an angioplasty wasn’t any further effective than a proper and far cheaper cocktail of drugs.

One cardiologist speaking with the Wall Street Journal noted:

“This tends to confirm concerns that many people have expressed—that there are many thousands of patients who undergo coronary interventions for very questionable indications.”

Not all doctors and hospitals are to blame, the study found that some hospitals and private practices were more responsible for the inflated Angioplasty numbers than others.