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Percutaneous coronary interventions are among the fastest-growing procedures in the U.S. Although PCI frequently is performed in patients with stable coronary artery disease, results of several clinical trials have shown that it is generally no more effective than medical therapy in reducing the risk for death or MI in this population (Journal Watch Cardiology Mar 26 2007). To characterize the reasons for this discordance between evidence and practice, investigators in California conducted focus groups of interventional and noninterventional cardiologists, who discussed hypothetical case scenarios of patients with stable CAD and absent or atypical symptoms.
Most of the participants expressed the belief that PCI would reduce the risk for card…