Public release date: 29-Nov-2005 [ | Contact: Amy Murphy 301-581-3476 Emergency bypass surgery on angioplasty patients drops 90 percent Decline seen at Mayo Clinic even as physicians expanded angioplasty to sicker patients When life-threatening problems occur during angioplasty procedures, doctors may perform emergency coronary artery bypass graft surgery, but data from the Mayo Clinic indicates that need to send patients to emergency surgery has dropped sharply, according to a new study in the Dec. 6, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "Our review of almost 25 years of data on angioplasty suggests that there has been a dramatic reduction of almost 90 percent in the incidence of coronary artery bypass graft surgery following angioplasty; and this is despite the fact that more recently we are performing ang

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