Bypass May Be Better for Older Diabetics

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarticle.jsp?storyId=19748085&filename=20090320/reuters20090320health00000010reutershealthewEDIT.xml

or

http://tinyurl.com/cdrd7e

(excerpt)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Heart bypass surgery may be less dangerous for
older patients with diabetes than angioplasty, researchers reported on
Thursday.

Overall, there was not much difference, they reported in the Lancet
medical journal. But among patients aged 65 to 75 who had diabetes,
the bypass surgery was markedly less risky.

The study, paid for by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, is one of a series meant to help doctors and patients choose
which treatment they want when several different options are
available.

Mark Hlatky of Stanford University in California and an international
team of colleagues studied the data from 10 different trials involving
more than 7,800 patients.

The studies were all designed to see if there was any difference
between bypass surgery, in which a vein is grafted to route blood
around a clogged coronary artery, and angioplasty, in which a blocked
artery is stretched or scraped clean or propped open with a mesh tube
called a stent.

Overall, 15 to 16 percent of the patients died. But patients with
diabetes were 30 percent less likely to die if they got the bypass,
Hlatky's team reported.

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