Angioplasty Definition

What is angioplasty ?

Angioplasty is a treatment that is of a cardiac catheterization. An extension Catheterization is not only suitable for studying on constrictions by artery disease, coronary artery disease, but also to deal with. Constrictions which effectively

Spaghettidun a tube (catheter) with a point on the empty balloon is brought to the site of the constriction via the arteries. Arrived at that place, the balloon is inflated, which is easily visible on a monitor with an X-ray film. The elastic artery walls are pushed out of one another, after which the balloon is deflated. The x-ray film is to see whether the narrowing is diminished. Direct If necessary, inflating the balloon repeated a few times.

To the artery walls and then locked into their new position, the vessel is often reinforced with a tiny tube, a angioplasty stent. A stent is a type of stocking support for the inner wall of the artery.

Angioplasty with stents is a relatively new treatment that rapidly evolving. The treatment is gaining ground compared to the alternative in severely narrowed coronary artery bypass surgery.

At cardiac catheterization, a catheter is pricked through the skin and brought to the coronary arteries via a blood vessel. Thereafter, there is an X-ray film was made to investigate. The condition of the coronary arteries In order to make the coronary arteries on a monitor is visible contrast agent injected into the blood stream via the tip of the catheter. The blood in the arteries appears as a shadow image on the monitor and any constrictions come razor to the light.

Cardiac catheterization is a research, but in certain cases - for example, in acute myocardial infarction - is their investigation into a treatment, angioplasty. Through the catheter minuscule instruments are led to the place of the constriction, wherein the wire serves as a kind of monorail. The choke is opened, usually with a balloon but sometimes by a clot way to suck. In some cases, a stent is placed. The stent is a type of stocking support that ensures that the artery wall is not lowered back, so that there is a new narrowing could occur.

Angioplasty Definition | angioplasty procedure | heart stent


Angioplasty with stents versus bypass surgery

Like many medical treatments, the technique of angioplasty of measurement was on, extensively tested in clinical trials. The big question is: if you've narrowed coronary arteries, which are you best off: with angioplasty with bypass surgery or medication alone? The question is still unanswerable. It remains customization, and medications are still relevant.

A problem with angioplasty was an increased risk that a new constriction formed on the treated area. Doctors call this restenosis (stenosis = narrowing). In order to prevent restenosis, the stents were devised. However, the foreign material of the first metal stents was found to be able to elicit which had a new narrowing may result. Out a reaction in some cases, The first stents are known as bare-metal stents (BMS), or stents that are made of metal alone. The problem was solved by preparing a drug that tissue formation counteracts the stent. These stents are called drug-Eluting- Stents (DES), or stents which secrete a drug.

If your prospects after bypass surgery compared with forecasts after angioplasty with a stent will be no real winner. The difference is that angioplasty is much less stressful. After angioplasty, you can quickly return home, sometimes the same day. Bypass surgery requires a longer recovery period. On the other hand, the possibilities of angioplasty in severely narrowed coronary arteries sometimes limited and appropriate treatment. Remains a bypass surgery in that case.

Who is angioplasty?

Angioplasty is indicated for chest pain caused by one or more narrowed coronary arteries. The chest pain must be serious and not to treat with medication. If someone suddenly with a heart attack ends up in the hospital, there will often be treated vessel. To limit the damage the heart muscle has to get back as soon as enough oxygen, which can by lifting. Closing coronary

Angioplasty is not identified as the chest pain with medication to treat or when the coronary arteries are narrowed that bypass surgery is necessary.

As someone with severe narrowed coronary arteries ends up in the hospital, the doctor is sometimes the question: angioplasty or bypass surgery? In recent years, angioplasty site, wins due to the use of a new type of stent, the drug-eluting stent (DES).

After angioplasty: risk factors and medications

After angioplasty you can feel remarkably fit, but that feeling is to some extent misleading. You have artery disease and you should be treated to prevent. Further complaints as much as possible First, you do well to limit it to the risk factors in your life but you will also have to swallow medication. The rest of your life You get coagulation-inflammatory drugs in order to make the so-called platelet inhibitors, such as aspirin and clopidogrel (Plavix brand name). The risk of blood clots forming smaller Too much LDL cholesterol in the blood reduces the risk of a new constriction larger and therefore requires the doctor for cholesterol.

PCI and PTCA

The technique of catheterisation is in motion and the naming too. The name angioplasty has been established, although angioplasty but one of many possibilities. Doctors use a more accurate terminology itself, with a preference for descriptive abbreviations that the head of the uninitiated dazzle. The end is not in sight, because the future will undoubtedly new techniques and new names.

PCI is the common name for the treatment of narrowed coronary arteries with the aid of instruments on the tip of a catheter. PCI stands for Percutaneous Coronary Interventions. Percutaneous means an opening in the skin, is a coronary artery and an intervention is surgery. Cardiologists who perform these actions are called interventional cardiologists.

An older name is PTCA, which stands for Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty. Transluminally relates to the lumen, the inner space of an artery in which the blood flows, and through which the catheter passes. Angioplasty is to say, the modeling (plastic) of the artery (angio).

Mr. Dotter and Stent

The American radiologist Charles Dotter gave his name to the angioplasty. In 1963, Dotter accidentally discovered that a catheter was able to eliminate. One narrowing in a coronary artery He developed a variety of techniques to stretch, especially through catheters of different thicknesses to be led by the strictures of the narrowed coronary artery, but he initially found few followers. The technique was only many years later in motion when the Swiss cardiologist Andreas Grüntzig a balloon on the catheter is mounted to gently inflate. That at the place of the constriction The result of the experiment was impressive and after a presentation at a scientific conference, the technique of angioplasty quickly spread throughout the world. In 1980 angioplasty for the first time in the Netherlands, at the St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht.

The stent name goes back to the nineteenth-century English dentist Charles Stent, whose inventions have led. Applications on different areas of a century later Except his name dentist Stent so basically nothing to do with the type of stent that we are talking about here.

Angioplasty: a great future

It is expected that the potential of balloon angioplasty, or rather of percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in the future will only increase. New technologies are emerging. We mention here two: IVUS and absorbable stents.

IVUS is an abbreviation of Intra Vascular UltraSound. When IVUS is a little instrument mounted on the catheter that is capable of transmitting and receiving ultrasound, a technique which is of the echocardiography known. IVUS is something the cardiac catheterization can not, which is to the plaque, the thickened arterial wall which causes the narrowing into view. At cardiac catheterization is the narrowing to see if a narrowing of the blood flow, but the artery wall itself is not visible. IVUS with the location and the composition of the plaque can be examined, which, among other things can lead to prevention of arterial disease.

Absorbable stents resolve after a period of time in the whole arterial wall. These stents as possible, the performance of the existing stents still surpass. Clinical trials have to tell.

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