Major clinical research has found that for many patients with clogged arteries, bypass surgery is a better option than drug-eluting stents.
The Dutch researchers say for patients with difficult-to-treat clogged arteries, surgery was best, as those given a drug-coated stent were more likely to need a repeat procedure.
Patients typically need at least a month to fully recover from open-heart surgery which can be a five-hour long operation under general anesthesia, whereas angioplasty patients are often up and walking around after three days.
The results of the 'SYNTAX' study comparing Boston Scientific's drug-coated Taxus stents with bypass surgery have been eagerly awaited.
The researchers found after a 12 month study of more than 3,000 patients in Europe and the United States, that 17.8 percent of patients receiving stents either died, suffered a heart attack, had a stroke or needed a repeat procedure.
The figure was 12.1 percent for those undergoing surgery and receiving coronary artery bypass grafting, known as CABG.
The study excluded patients who had acute heart attacks and included those who had single and multiple vessel blockages.
Stents are tiny wire-mesh tubes used to prop open clogged heart arteries and were first introduced in the 1990s and the procedure, which allows doctors to treat patients by inserting a catheter into the groin, means a very quick recovery time, whereas CABG requires open-heart surgery.