Do you really need that stent?

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Do you really need that stent? A Maryland cardiologist inserted as many as 585 unnecessary cardiac stents in patients at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., between 2007 and 2009, according to a Senate Finance Committee report released Monday. The report found that the questionable stent implantations cost the Medicare program $3.8 million during that period. The Senate report also details the cozy relationship the doctor, Mark Midei, had with Abbot Laboratories, the maker of the wire-mesh devices, which are meant to keep partially clogged arteries propped open. The company reportedly spent over $2,000 on a BBQ dinner for the doctor, including a whole roast pig, after one particularly busy day when the physician inserted 30 of the stents. We reported in October on the efforts of Propublica, a nonprofit organization, to provide information about physicians who receive gifts from drug companies. While seven drug companies now make such records available, Abbot is not one of them. We have also previously discussed the overuse of stents, as well as a related procedure called angioplasty. See our advice on when they are appropriate, as well as our ratings of surgeons who perform heart bypass surgery. --Joel Keehn, senior editor

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Submitted @ 2010-12-07