Stents are incredibly prevalent. All of us know many people that have had stents. Usually, the reason the patient understands is the following, "I had a ___ % blockage in the artery of my heart."

There have been multiple studies showing that many ( maybe most) stents don't help. The most recent was the ORBITA study, published in the LANCET in January 2018.

The ORBITA trial was a randomized comparison of stents to lifestyle and medication therapy of 200 individuals. They even did a sham procedure. Here's how that worked. All 200 patients were admitted and prepped for the stent procedure. So all 200 had no clue whether they'd actually had a stent placed or not.

The result? There was no difference in the treadmill exercise test. The stents did not help.