Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Catheter Causes Cardiac Arrest

I'd rather you just leave me there and allow me to expire, please.

"Study sees similar heart benefits; Catheterization aids women, men" by Will Dunham, Reuters | July 2, 2008

WASHINGTON - Cardiac catheterization is a procedure that enables doctors to locate and open possible coronary artery blockages with the aim of preventing heart attacks and death.

The procedure involves passing a long, thin, flexible tube known as a catheter typically through the upper thigh and into the heart, allowing doctors to do diagnostic cardiac tests and treatments.

No thanks! Keep your TUBES OUTTA ME!!!!

In the United States, cardiac catheterization is routinely performed on most patients who come to a hospital suffering a heart attack or unstable angina. But previous research had suggested women may not benefit as much as men from the procedure or even might be harmed.

Just LEAVE ME BE, folks!

"Although heart disease is the number one killer of women each year, there still remain a lot of unanswered questions about the best way to treat women with heart disease," Dr. Michelle O'Donoghue of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital said in a telephone interview.

"And this is in part due to the fact that men continue to outnumber women in randomized clinical trials [assessing cardiac care]. So, therefore, in a lot of instances, we don't really know whether women benefit as much as men from some of our proven therapies," added O'Donoghue, who led the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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