Comparative costs versus symptomatic and employment benefits of medical and surgical treatment of stable angina pectoris.

For patients who underwent cardiac catheterization for stable angina pectoris at the authors' hospital, initial treatment charges including the cardiac catheterization were approximately $28,000 for coronary surgery and $6,000 for medical therapy. Even after controlling for disease severity and after including medical patients who crossed over to surgery, the slightly increased 3-year follow-up costs of medical therapy offset only approximately 11% of the far higher initial costs of surgery. Surgical patients were more likely to have sustained, substantial symptomatic improvement at 3 years (68% vs. 53%, P less than 0.05) but were no more likely to have, maintain, or regain a job. Although the cost-effectiveness of coronary surgery may compare favorably with other modern therapies for other conditions, coronary surgery did not pay for itself at 3-year follow-up in our patients.