Self-study
Cardiologist: Coronary bypass surgery is commonly performed on patients suffering from coronary artery disease when certain other therapies would be as effective. ███████ █████ ██████████ ████████████ █████ █████ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ███ █████████████ ████████
Summary
Coronary bypass surgery is performed on patients with coronary artery disease when other treatments would be as effective. The other therapies are less expensive and pose less risk to the patient. These concerns are especially high for single-vessel disease.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
It is likely that therapies other than coronary bypass surgery would be as effective for conditions like single-vessel disease while posing less risk and cost to the patient.
2.
The cardiologist's statements, if true, ████ ████████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Bypass surgery is ███████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██████████
This is unsupported because the author only states that there are some therapies with less risk than coronary bypass surgery, not that all therapies are less risky. There could be other therapies with much greater risk that are not discussed.
b
Needless bypass surgery ██ ████ ██████ █████ ████ ███████████
This is unsupported because the author provides no information about the frequency of different surgeries over time.
c
Bypass surgery should ██ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████
This is unsupported because although the author said bypass surgery is especially debatable for single-vessel disease, the author leaves open the possibility that bypass surgery is also too risky for diseases of multiple vessels.
d
Bypass surgery is ██ ██████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ██ █████ █████████████ ████████
This is unsupported because while we know that bypass surgery is especially debatable for single-vessel disease, we don’t know if this is due to cost or risk.
e
Sometimes there are ███████ █████████ ████████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ █████
This is strongly supported because the stimulus indicates that other therapies are as effective as bypass surgeries and that these therapies involve lower risk.