People who get stents are at increased risk if they undergo surgery within a year, even if the procedure is not heart related, a new study suggests.

Every year, more than half a million Americans undergo procedures to have a coronary artery narrowed by heart disease widened and propped open with a small metal tube, or stent.

Previous studies have found high rates of major cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke, and even death, in people who undergo surgery following such a procedure. 

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., reviewed a total of 24,313 people who underwent noncardiac surgery from 2006 through 2011. Included in this total were 1,120 cases involving people who had undergone stenting.

At 30 days, rates of these major cardiovascular events were higher in those who had undergone previous stenting compared to those that had not. In particularly, they found an increased risk of  3.7 percent compared to 1.5 percent.

The increase appeared related to how soon the person underwent surgery following the stent procedure, but by one year, the added risk had disappeared, the researchers said.  Patients who received bare metal stents, as compared to drug-eluting ones, appeared to be at higher risk, the study found.

More study is needed but if this link is borne out, guidelines on how soon surgery is done following a stent procedure may need to be updated, the researchers said of their study, which appears  in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.