Surgical Patients Not Consistently Informed about Alternatives, Study Finds

Alternatives to surgery are infrequently discussed for some procedures; only 10% of patients who received stents for coronary artery disease and 64% of patients who underwent prostate surgery report that they were informed about alternatives, concludes a study published online on February 28, 2012, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Researchers surveyed 472 patients who had stents for coronary artery disease and 685 patients who had prostate cancer surgery. The authors note that while the conditions are dramatically different from a clinical perspective, the use of a completely conservative treatment can be a reasonable option for both.