This is a well written story about a study that raises concerns about the use of angioplasty and stenting for the treatment of patients who have had a heart attack more than 12 hours before and are no longer experiencing chest pain (angina). It lays out current medical practice and the rational for this practice; it then explains the nature of the data demonstrating that for this particular group of patients, the more invasive intervention is no better in preventing future heart attacks, heart failure, or death than treating these patient only with the medication they would receive after the intervention.
The story provides useful insight into the importance of clinical trials, even for treatments that the experts 'believe' to be best.
The estimated cost for having a stent placed in a coronary artery was mentioned.
The benefits of the two treatments in terms of reducing the risk of heart attack, heart failure, or death in this particular patient group (individuals who had had a heart attack more than 12 hours before and were no longer experiencing angina) were found not to differ as reported in the story.
The harms associated with the use of drug coated stents were presented in this story. The reader needed to infer that a harm associated with stents was the propensity of the artery to "close again". Ideally, a story should mention both the frequency and severity of adverse effects. But since the focus of this story was on a study showing that the rates of heart attack and death were comparable for different approaches ("either heart medicines only or balloon treatment and stents with heart medicines"), we consider this as satisfactory.
The story described the design of the study, presented the results of the study and explained the significance of the observations.
The first author of the study discussed, the director of the NIH institute funding the study, and an expert in the field not associated with the study all appeared to be sources of information for this story.
The story presented the treatment options following a heart attack as a balloon treatment (angioplasty) and stent along with optimal medical management OR optimal medical management alone that were discussed in the study outlined.
It's clear from the story that this is a widely used procedure.
The treatment discussed in the story is not a novel treatment nor was it portrayed as such.
This story does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
The tale of two “negative” studies. Or, how spin is applied to make research findings look more impressive. A must read. https://johnmandrola.substack.com/p/the-tale-of-two-negative-studies
The @nytimes chose to interview one of the editors of the @AnnalsofIM (publisher of this paper) who "gushed with extraordinary glee: It’s huge! There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30%."
Turns out coffee is not one of those few things despite all that glee. https://twitter.com/garyschwitzer/status/1533202075928215558
Comments
Please note, comments are no longer published through this website. All previously made comments are still archived and available for viewing through select posts.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.
You might also like