Drugs Equal to Angioplasty for Chest Pain

People with chest pain can get long-term relief from medicines, even without angioplasty, researchers say. In angioplasty, a tiny balloon is blown up inside an artery to widen it. This increases blood flow to end chest pain. A tube called a stent is put in to keep the artery open. The new study included 2,287 people who had chest pain that was not getting worse. They were randomly assigned to two treatment groups. One was treated with drugs. The other received drugs plus angioplasty. Angioplasty relieved pain better at first. But both groups continued to improve. Within three years pain was about the same in the two groups. The Associated Press wrote about the study August 14. It was in the New England Journal of Medicine.