George W. Bush’s Recent Stent Implant Sparks Debate

The mainstream media picked up on former President George W. Bush's recent implantation of a stent after physicians detected an arterial blockage. The news has prompted a debate on the efficacy of heart stents in general, and have reignited discussions from the 2007 Courage trial, which reported that drug therapy were as effective at stents while being substantially more cost effective. In fact, two large clinical trials carried out in the past seven years have supported the efficacy of drug therapy over stents, as they find drug therapy to be as effective and less expensive treatment. Stents can carry hospital price tags as high as $50,000. Other first-world nations implant stents at a rate substantially lower than the United States. "This is really American medicine at its worst," said Steven Nissen, head of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio in an interview with Bloomberg. "It's one of the reasons we spend so much on health care and we don't get a lot for it. In this circumstance, the stent doesn't prolong life, it doesn't prevent heart attacks and it's hard to make a patient who has no symptoms feel better."Still, the efficacy of stents for heart-attack patients is demonstrable, as they facilitate improved blood flow that aids recovery. In addition, special cases may warrant immediately stenting over first attempting pharmacotherapy.