650,000-1,000,000 Stents (mesh 'tube' inserted into a natural passage/conduit in the body) are placed in patients with coronary stenosis (narrowing of an artery) every year. This costs about $10,000 per patient! Do the math and that's a lot of money spent on one procedure. There may be a better alternative. A study that came out in 2004 took a group of individuals who had stable coronary artery disease. Half were assigned to normal treatment, i.e. stenting, while the other half received no stenting but exercised 20 minutes/day at about 70% of max HR. The subjects were followed for one year. At the end of the study it was found that there were significantly less subjects in the exercise group who had ischemic (restriction of blood supply) events when compared to the ones who received stents (6 in the exercise group compared to 21 in the stent group). Talk about being able to save money! Exercise was a superior solution to stenting! When we exercise we exert pressure on our arterial walls. This is a good thing and causes dialation of the arteries. Exercise allows this to happen throughout our entire vascular system while stenting only increases the diameter in one region. "Percutaneous Coronary Angioplasty Compared with Exercise Training in Patients with Stable Coronary Artery Disease" 2004.
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