Surgical backup needed for non-urgent angioplasties

Patients undergoing non-emergency angioplasty in medical centres where surgical backup was not available were twice as likely to die, a study presented last week at the American Heart Association's scientific sessions in New Orleans showed. Patients were also 20% more likely to require bypass surgery elsewhere, the study found.

Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty was introduced in the early 1980s, when it was performed only in hospitals …