Many heart patients get newer, pricey stents inserted during artery-clearing procedures, even if it’s not clear they would be worse off with more basic, less expensive stents, a new study suggests. The new findings are an example of ways technology gets overused and at times misused in healthcare, according to a commentary accompanying the study. Along with being more costly, so-called drug-eluting stents require patients to take aspirin and other blood-thinning drugs for a longer period of time after their procedure. That may require them to put off future elective surgeries because of bleeding risks, according to one researcher who worked on the report produced by Dr Robert Yeh and colleagues.
