Balloons and Stents
Common Procedures with Shorter Recovery

Dr. Neal Kleiman
Director
Cardiac Catheterization
Laboratories
Methodist DeBakey
Heart & Vascular Center

After Sally suffered a heart attack, she became more physically active, followed a more healthful diet, took the medications her physician prescribed and received regular checkups. Still, an angiogram showed that despite these changes, Sally had a blockage in one of her coronary arteries. Her physician recommended an angioplasty to open the blockage and improve blood flow to Sally's heart.

Each year, angioplasty, a nonsurgical medical procedure, is performed on more than 1 million people in the United States.* Angioplasty can reduce the symptoms of coronary artery disease (CAD). The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center, a leading center for cardiac care, performs many interventions to help treat CAD and offers health education programs to improve the chances of success after an angioplasty.

What Is an Angioplasty?
Arteries can become blocked or narrowed by deposits of fat and cholesterol, or plaque, that build up on artery walls. When the blockage is not too extensive, angioplasty can be used to open the artery. In traditional angioplasty, a small, flexible tube (or catheter) is inserted into a large blood vessel in the upper thigh or arm, and threaded through the artery into or near the blockage. A number of different surgical devices, such as a balloon, are used to open the blocked vessel. In most cases, a stent, or cylindrical piece of metal mesh (often coated with medication to help prevent future narrowing and reduce the odds of needing repeated angioplasty in the future) is then placed into the artery and expanded using another balloon. This procedure helps restore proper blood flow of the heart muscle. Collectively, these procedures are referred to as perctuaneous coronary interventions (PCI).

In coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), a graft is surgically installed to bypass blocked arteries. The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center is a leading hospital in performing off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting, which allows the heart to stay beating during the surgery. It is a delicate procedure and can provide a speedier recovery for patients.

"PCI is a commonly performed procedure," says Neal Kleiman, M.D., director of the cardiac catheterization lab at Methodist. "Most often, it makes people feel better immediately after it's performed. The recovery time is short — most patients spend a day in the hospital and are up and doing things the next day."

PCI can dramatically improve blood flow through the coronary arteries to the heart. In many patients, it may replace the need for coronary artery bypass surgery.

For patients who are having a heart attack, angioplasty can be a lifesaving procedure. Angioplasty or stenting does not cure the cause of blockages, which are often due to diet and lifestyle.

How Healthy Is Your Heart?
"We treat a very broad spectrum of patients," Dr. Kleiman says. "Most of the time people have narrowing in one or more coronary arteries and are experiencing symptoms such as chest pain."

To reduce your chances of needing a PCI — or your chances of needing a second procedure or bypass surgery — it is important to follow a healthful diet, control high blood pressure and/ or high cholesterol, engage in adequate physical activity, maintain a healthy weight, reduce stress and, if you smoke, quit smoking.

The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center provides health education, including public seminars and heart-focused publications, to help patients prevent CAD. For patients who have had one of these procedures, our team of physicians, specialists and dietitians help get you back on track to a healthy lifestyle.

* Source: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

Talk to your physician about your risk factors for heart disease, including how you can lower your risk. To schedule a heart and vascular screening, call 866-254-8361. Or, to learn more about women and heart health, visit www.debakeyheartcenter.com.