Stents take a hit

From the ACC meetings, the results that were supposed to be released tomorrow were leaked early:

For patients with stable coronary artery disease, treatment with angioplasty and bare-metal stents does not reduce the risk of heart attack or a composite of death, heart attack and stroke.

Let’s see if this study will change medical practice or not. Stent supporters are on the defense:

The key quote about Courage came from stent proponent Martin Leon, a founder of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation in New York, who downplayed the results at a symposium sponsored by Boston Scientific Sunday evening. “It was rigged to fail, and it did,” he said. The findings weren’t supposed to be made public until Tuesday.