A war broke out in New Orleans today over these little devices and, in the process, pulled the curtain back on the extent to which money sometimes dictates patient care.

A doctor, who is a consultant to Boston Scientific, last night angered the American College of Cardiology and the New England Journal of Medicine by disclosing results of a widely anticipated study on stents. His comments were quickly reported, which caused the ACC and the NEJM to lift their well-coorindated embargo this afternoon, nearly one day early.

The study “was rigged to fail, and it did,” Martin Leon of Columbia University was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as telling hundreds of doctors on Sunday night. “A lot of people have been taking shots at us, and we need to go on the offense for awhile.”

So here’s a doc, who sometimes gets paid by a stent maker, jabbering about a study that will hurt the stent maker. That doesn’t look good. But how does he know this anyway? Leon claimed to have inside knowledge of the results because he reviewed the study for the NEJM, which wouldn’t comment because reviewer identities are kept confidential.

Bill Boden, the chief of cardiology at Buffalo General Hospital who led the study, later told The Wall Street Journal that he was upset at the way the study was broached and blamed it on doctors who favor using stents. They “obviously are threatened by the results of the study.”

Why would doctors feel threatened? Aren’t doctors supposed to be concerned with patient care? As Prudential Equity’s Larry Biegelsen points out in an investor note this afternoon, the negative impact of the study may be modest for several reasons, one of which is that, for many doctors, “there are financial incentives for stenting.”

Oh, right. This is about money, not health care. Another day, another angioplasty. Ka-ching!

First story in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required);
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