Angioplasties Increasing, Bypass Surgeries Decreasing

Angioplasties Increasing, Bypass Surgeries Decreasing

31 Aug 2007

Use of transluminal coronary angioplasty, or PTCA, a procedure for opening blocked arteries in patients with coronary artery disease, is now used nearly three times more often than the older and more invasive coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

AHRQ found that:

The number of angioplasties nearly doubled from 1993 to 2005, rising steadily from 418,000 to 800,000 a year.

In contrast, heart bypass surgeries rose slowly from 344,000 to 426,000 a year between 1993 and 1997, and then declined steadily to 278,000 a year by 2005.

Although hospital stays in 2005 for angioplasty are much shorter than they were in 1993 (on average 2.7 days instead of 4.6 days), hospital charges have increased by more than 50 percent during the period, rising from $31,300 to $48,000 (adjusted for inflation).

With 1.1 million hospital stays in 2005, coronary artery disease was the third most common reason for hospitalization after childbirth and pneumonia.

It was the second leading reason for men, and the seventh for women.

http://www.ahrq,gov