Mayo Clinic researchers have studied the largest group of patients to date to understand the risk of non-cardiac elective surgery for those who have cardiac stents. The two papers, along with an editorial, are in the current issue of Anesthesiology.
The research indicates that patients who have cardiac stents placed in arteries should wait before having elective surgery or procedures — at least 90 days for those who have a bare metal stent and 12 months for those who have a drug eluting stent. The delay decreases the risk of surgery-related death, heart attack and the need to reopen the clotted stent.
In the studies, nearly 900 patients who received a bare metal stent and more than 500 who received a drug eluting stent were examined between 1990 to 2005.
Chet Rihal, M.D., senior author of the studies and director of Mayo Clinic’s catheterization lab, discusses the studies and their importance for the hundreds of thousands of patients who have stents placed each year:
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This sounds like a very risky procedure.