There is no difference in survival between black and white patients with heart disease who undergo angioplasty, a procedure to open blocked heart blood vessels, new research shows.

Cardiologists from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York analyzed the impact of race on 3783 patients who underwent angioplasty between 1998 and 1999. The group included 462 black and 3321 white patients.

In the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr. David L. Brown and colleagues report that the rates of successful angioplasty and survival were high and similar between the black and white patients.

Three years after angioplasty, the percentage of black and white patients still living was nearly the same-about 90 percent.

“The take-home message,” Brown told Reuters Health, “is that race itself does not impact 3-year outcomes among patients with (heart) disease undergoing” angioplasty.

However, this study only included patients who were already plugged into the medical system, he noted.

“A very different issue and one we are actively studying is whether blacks have the same access to the medical system as whites. My guess is they don’t, he added, “but it still needs to be scientifically proven.”

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, September 1, 2004.