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A procedure used to relieve chest pain in hundreds of thousands of heart patients each year is useless for many of them, researchers reported on Wednesday. Their study focused on the insertion of stents, tiny wire cages, to open blocked arteries. The devices are lifesaving when used to open arteries in patients in the throes of a heart attack. (Kolata, 11/2)

The 200-patient study conducted by U.K. researchers found that patients with stable chest pain, or angina, who received stent devices experienced no significant improvement in exercise time on a treadmill, compared with similar patients who received no stents during sham procedures. All patients had received intensive treatment with heart drugs for six weeks before the real or fake procedures. (Loftus, 11/2)

A study of 200 heart patients in the United Kingdom shocked the international cardiology community on Thursday when it reported that patients who had stents put in to treat nonemergency chest pain showed about the same improvements as patients who got a “sham” placebo procedure. The findings from the first-of-its-kind study contradicted widespread assumptions that using the metal mesh tubes to prop open clogged arteries would allow patients to walk longer on a treadmill by hastening blood flow to the muscles that make the heart pump. (Carlson and Olson, 11/2)