Web edition: November 4, 2012 LOS ANGELES – Bypass surgery may
be a better option for diabetic patients with clogged arteries
than a less invasive procedure to prop open blocked vessels from
the inside, an international team reports. The finding could
change how doctors treat many diabetic cardiac patients. Bypass
surgery requires taking healthy vessels from another part of the
body and patching them onto the heart to restore blood flow
around a clogged coronary artery. The surgery requires a longer
recovery time than implanting stents, mesh cylinders coated with
medication that doctors thread up into the arteries to improve
blood flow. Roughly 700,000 people in the United States undergo
a coronary artery fix each year — whether by stenting or bypass
surgery — and one in four has diabetes, says cardiologist
Valentin Fuster of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
To find the best treatment for these patients, Fuster and
colleagues randomly assigned 1,900 people with diabetes who had
blockages in more t