EVERY year, more than 25,000 South Africans with heart disease undergo a common procedure that many don’t need, and that could harm or even kill them, say specialists.It is angioplasty, the widening of a narrowed or obstructed artery with a balloon at the end of a catheter, and the use of a thin metal mesh tube (stent) to keep heart vessels open.In an emergency — if a patient is having a heart attack — angioplasty and stent can restore blood flow to the heart, and few specialists dispute that it is life saving. In the absence of a heart attack, research shows the procedure (known collectively as stenting) is often no better than medicine, exercise and diet in preventing an attack.In September, two of the largest medical bodies in the US, the American Medical Association and The Joint Commission, identified stenting as one of five most highly overused medical interventions (along with antibiotic use, blood transfusion, tubing for ear infections and early induction of birth for no med...
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