Coronary Artery Bypass Graph Case Study Rationale for selecting article:

As a nurse, I have interacted with patients who have required coronary artery bypass graphs, although this is a recent experience; before this I had not been involved in these procedures. It is a serious medical procedure, as most procedures involving the internal organs are, particularly with regard to the human heart. CABG are used by surgeons to treat people with coronary heart disease (CHD). Plague within the heart hardens and then narrows the coronary arteries, reducing flow of blood to the heart which can result in a blood clot. CABG allow for the needed blood to get through the heart by bypassing the blocked artery. During the procedures, patients are anesthetized and then a healthy artery or vein is taken from another part of the body and connected to the blocked coronary artery. The article chosen is entitled "Percutaneous Coronary Intervention vs. Coronary-Artery Bypass Grafting for Severe Coronary Artery Disease" and examines the treatments available for patients with CAD and CHD and whether or not CABG is still a viable solution.

2. Problem Statement:

Researchers looked at both percutaneous coronary intervention and CABG to determine which of the two methods would best treat patients with CHD in modern hospital settings (Serruys et. Al. 2009,-page 961). There is as yet no one treatment which has gained universal acceptance as a means of treating or curing patients dealing with heart disease. CABG is a method which has been around longer and most medical technicians believe that it is the best treatment of all the ones available for treating coronary heart...

The two methods have never been directly compared in scientific research, which is the reason this survey was conducted.
3. Methodology:

A SYNTAX trial was conducted which looked at the consecutive enrollment of all eligible patients who had been diagnosed with three-vessel or left main coronary artery disease.

4. Research Design:

a. Setting:

85 different medical sites were chosen to participate in the experiment to get a wider range of results and thereby increase the validity and universality of the findings. These testing sites were in 17 different countries throughout both Europe and the United States (Surruys et. Al 2009,-page 963). The intention was to get as wide an array of subjects as possible in order to eliminate biases in the test.

b. Subjects included in the research:

A panel of medical professionals determined which patients of those who were diagnosed with the heart condition but who had not yet been treated should be included in the experiment. Criterion included whether they had had previous treatment and this was a recurrence which would have eliminated them from the study. Patients involved were chosen at random to have either CABG or PCI treatment. Those patients who could not safely be involved in the randomization where placed in a second registry: either the PCI registry for CABG-ineligible patients or the CABG registry for PCI-ineligible patients (Surruys et. Al 2009,-page 965).

c. Sample size / number of subjects in the study:

Of 4,337 patients who were examined as…