HCA Probe Spotlights Cardiologists’ ’Irresistible Temptation’ – HealthLeaders Media
Physicians specializing in cardiology coined the term “oculostenotic reflex” over a decade ago. But the phrase has been popping up this month in conversations about accusations that thousands of patients underwent inappropriate heart procedures at HCA hospitals in Florida and in three other states, the subject of a federal probe.
Writing in the journal Circulation in 1995, Eric Topol, MD, and Steven Nissen, MD, described this phenomenon as “an irresistible temptation among some invasive cardiologists to perform angioplasty on any significant residual stenosis after thrombolysis”—that is, after clot-busting medications have been used.
Nissen and Topol wrote that while professional organizations don’t support this practice, “the ritual of reflex angioplasty is exercised thousands of times each year.”
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