Coronary stenting may give patients a head start toward recovery when compared with the surgical removal of plaque from arteries, called endarterectomy; but that edge doesn’t last, new research suggests.
Patients who received a stent experienced less pain and improved mobility one month after surgery, but after about a year their quality of life was no different from patients who underwent endarterectomy.
"To nobody’s surprise, carotid stenting was a simpler and easier procedure for patients to recover from," lead investigator Drs. David Cohen told Heartwire. "At two weeks there was a clear advantage of stenting over surgery, and even after one month, although by then the benefits were starting to diminish. By one year, there were no differences on any of the measures between the two treatments."
The results came from the Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial (CREST) trial, the largest randomized trial comparing the two interventions yet. It involved 2502 patients across 117 U.S. and Canadian clinics, and took 10 years to complete.