Angioplasties could be more widely available after study

Associated Press

CHICAGO — Angioplasties can safely be done on heart attack victims at hospitals that do not have cardiac surgery departments, according to a study that could help make the lifesaving procedure available to many more patients across the country.

Numerous studies have shown that angioplasty — in which a tiny balloon is used to open a clogged artery — is the best treatment for heart attacks. But some medical standards and state regulations say doctors should perform angioplasties only at hospitals that have a cardiac surgery unit in case something goes wrong.

The new study, conducted at 11 hospitals without cardiac surgery units, challenges that thinking. Angioplasty patients fared about as well as those who undergo the procedure at surgery-ready hospitals, researchers said.

In Snohomish County, only Providence Everett Medical Center has a cardiac surgery unit that routinely performs angioplasties, conducting more than 800 a year.

The hospital’s Cardiac Health Network coordinates with hospitals in Monroe, Arlington, two hospitals on Whidbey Island and in Mount Vernon to provide coordinated care, said Tom Brennan, executive director of the Providence Heart Institute.

"We would make sure they were stabilized here and then sent to Providence," Clark Jones, co-chief executive of Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington, said of how heart attack patients are treated there.

Since Providence is only about 30 minutes away, "we use them," said Martha Dankers, spokeswoman for Valley General Hospital in Monroe.

Stevens Hospital in Edmonds can do emergency angioplasty procedures at the Swedish Heart Institute based there. Scheduled procedures are sent to Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, said spokeswoman Beth Engle.

Letting hospitals without cardiac surgery units perform angioplasties could more than double the number of heart attack patients who receive the procedure, potentially saving many more lives, said Dr. Thomas Aversano, a Johns Hopkins Hospital cardiologist who led the study. The benefits far outweigh the small risk of complications requiring surgery, he said.

About 1.1 million Americans each year have heart attacks, and more than 40 percent die.