Repeat angioplasty tied to further heart problems

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Patients who’ve already
undergone angioplasty to open a blocked heart vessel and have
to have a repeat angioplasty are at increased risk for problems
such as death or heart attack, researchers report in the
American Journal of Cardiology.

Because patients with a prior angioplasty are often
excluded from clinical trials, little information is available
on the long-term outcome of repeat angioplasty, senior
researcher Dr. Sheldon Goldberg of Hahnemann University,
Philadelphia and colleagues note.

To investigate further, the researchers used data from
patients who underwent angioplasty while taking part in a drug
study. In all, 7065 subjects had not had a previous
angioplasty, 1281 had had a previous angioplasty of the
blockage now being targeted and 1408 had had a previous
angioplasty of a different blockage.

At 1 month after angioplasty, there were no significant
differences between the groups in the rate of major adverse
heart events, including death, heart attack and the need for
further operations.

However, by 9 months, 34 percent of patients who underwent
angioplasty again for the same blockage had experienced an
adverse event compared with 19 percent of patients with no
prior angioplasty. For patients with previous angioplasty of a
different blockage, the corresponding proportion was 24
percent.

These findings have “reconfirmed the need for the
development and trial of new methods to improve the outcomes
of” patients undergoing repeat angioplasty.

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, September 15, 2005.