SCIENCE FILE / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment : Using Artery, Not Vein, in Heart Bypass May Extend Patient’s Life
From Times staff and wire reports
Heart bypass patients live longer if surgeons use an artery instead of a vein to repair the heart, New York surgeons have found. Bypass is one of the nation’s most common surgical procedures, performed on more than 300,000 people annually. Many surgeons have switched to using arteries, and the new research, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, concludes that they should use this approach on virtually everyone who needs the operation.
The team from St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York studied 749 men and women who received a bypass using either a chest artery or a leg vein and, 15 years later, found 23% fewer deaths among those who received the arteries.
