Percutaneous Coronary Angioplasty Compared With Exercise Training in Patients With Stable Coronary Artery Disease. A Randomized Trial
I have had many patients who were immediately given heart catheterization at a suspect cardiac event. Two patients in the past year were negative. Not a lot of fun from what they said. Well, basically, exercise gave a better outcome for cheaper than the invasive procedure. The cost thing, however, surprises me…$3429 for one year of exercise training. That’s $285/month. We could all have personal trainers coming to our house for that kind of money. So basically, this was a hyped-up exercise program and was really unfair to do a cost comparison. Of course, a real cost comparison of walking around the neighborhood for one year versus invasive cardiac procedures would be ridiculous.
Hambrecht et al., 10.1161/01.CIR.0000121360.31954.1F