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Read source of it on the Take Care of Heart Before Any Surgery: Experts page

SATURDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) — People with heart disease
should not stop taking cholesterol-lowering drugs before any kind of
noncardiac surgery, say new joint guidelines released this week by the
American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.

The new guidelines, which update those published in 2002, provide a
framework for considering and reducing a heart disease patient’s risk of a
cardiac event during or immediately after non-heart-related surgery.

Many heart disease patients can safely undergo noncardiac surgery
without first “fixing” their heart disease with coronary bypass grafting
or an artery-opening procedure, state the guidelines. They also outline
how to treat patients who do need a heart procedure before noncardiac
surgery, have coronary stents, or require anti-clotting medication.

“In the past, we had to go on indefinite evidence, but now there are a
number of studies published to help us direct best practices,” guideline
writing committee chair Dr. Lee A. Fleisher said in a prepared
statement.

“Previously, to have someone ready for surgery, many people needed
diagnostic tests to look at the extent of heart disease,” added Fleisher,
chair of the department of anesthesiology and critical care at the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

“We would do a lot of screening, and we might fix their heart disease
to get them ready for the noncardiac surgery. We know now that surgical
outcomes are the same in many people whether we fix the heart disease
first.”

The new guidelines appear online and are expected to be published in
upcoming print issues of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart
Association and the Journal of the American College of
Cardiology.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about heart
disease.

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