Word: angina
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GOODBYE, HEARTACHE Patients with mild angina may want to consider taking cholesterol-lowering drugs instead of undergoing angioplasty. Researchers say folks who get their clogged blood vessels opened up with angioplasty feel more robust than those who take very high doses of the drug Lipitor. But they may also be more likely to need future hospitalizations and either bypass surgery or another angioplasty before they're done...
...most--a third of the fat of the A.H.A. diet. (Patients also take part in an exercise and stretching regimen, plus meditation and group therapy to reduce stress.) Result: according to a five-year study published in 1998, patients on the Ornish regimen had lower cholesterol levels and fewer angina episodes, and in many cases they were able to avoid bypass surgery and angioplasty...
Eight years after the heart-bypass operation that saved his life, Floyd Stokes was in deep trouble again. His angina had returned with a vengeance. He was gulping nitroglycerine tablets and was virtually incapacitated, unable to do simple chores on his Seminole, Texas, ranch. Too far gone for another bypass, he had a choice, as he puts it, of "just waiting for death or trying to do something about...
When lasers were first used for the treatment in the mid-'80s, researchers believed the channels remained open. Apparently not. It is now thought that the drilling provokes new blood-vessel growth where the laser burns a hole. (Others suggest the angina may be eased simply because the laser numbs pain-sensing nerves of the heart.) Scar tissue from the laser holes seems minimal...
Laser therapy costs half as much as a bypass operation, which can run $40,000 or more. Gene therapy has no fixed price yet, although it is expected to cost significantly less than bypass surgery. There's no argument that laser therapy provides short-term relief for severe angina. Some studies suggest longer-term benefits. One found that almost three years after tmr, patients who had the worst form of angina (class IV, the kind that wakes you up at night) could maintain on average class I or II (pain with exertion only...