GP CLINICAL: JOURNALS WATCH: Surgery toys, screamers and arthritis/Dr Lorna Gold takes a look at a range of journals and gives her opinion on their findings.

The hazards of revascularisation

A prospective study from Sweden looked at 827 patients who underwent coronary artery revascularisation for chronic stable angina between 1994 and 1995.

Questionnaires on quality of life were completed at baseline and four years post-operatively. The study group had a significantly poorer quality of life at baseline than the Swedish norm. After four years, the 64 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women who had remained free from angina had quality-of-life scores at least as good as the population norms, but two in five patients with new or ongoing angina still had worse scores.

Coronary revascularisation is not hazard-free, and on current evidence it relieves symptoms rather than prolonging life. This adds another dimension to pre-operative …