Surgical association withdraws support for stent advice after controversy over study

The European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS) has withdrawn support for guidance on stents that it coauthored, following controversy over the research paper it was based on.

Concerns about the 2016 study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine1 and funded by stent maker Abbott, were raised by the BBC’s Newsnight,2 which obtained unpublished data from the trial.

The data reportedly showed that, when using the universal definition of heart attack, patients with left main coronary artery disease treated with stents are 35% more likely to die than those treated with conventional open heart surgery.

In the paper, the researchers only published the findings using an alternative definition of heart attack. Using this definition, the paper claimed that stents and heart surgery are equally effective for people with left main coronary artery disease.

After reviewing the unpublished data (using the universal definition), EACTS has now withdrawn its …