Angioplasty

The heart, like any other muscle in the body, needs a steady supply of oxygen-rich blood. If the coronary arteries are partially blocked, the blood flow will be greatly reduced, resulting in chest pain or a heart attack. Up until recently, if chest pain could not be controlled by medication, open heart surgery was the only alternative. Research on rabbits, dogs and other animals has led to the development of a new procedure to open blocked coronary arteries.

This procedure, called angioplasty, is now in common use among cardiovascular specialists. It takes only a few hours to complete and does not require the administration of general anaesthesia. In angioplasty, a thin tube, or catheter, is inserted into a large artery in the arm or groin and advanced up the aorta toward the heart. From there, it is carefully threaded into the narrowed coronary artery. The tip of the tube is equipped with a tiny balloon, which opens the blockage when inflated.

Cardiac catheterization is used prior to this procedure to determine exactly where the arteries are blocked. Blood vessels are filled with a dye so that the blockage can be seen. Often the angioplasty procedure itself can directly follow cardiac catheterization, requiring only a few hours of the patient's time, and the entire procedure generally has about a 3-day recovery period. This short time frame for the procedure and recovery makes angioplasty a tremendous advance over open heart surgery.