Lowering the renarrowing
risks Though coronary artery disease remains the leading cause of
death in developed countries, new options for maintaining these tiny but
critically important vessels are changing the landscape of cardiac care.
Traditionally, the most severe cases of coronary disease could only be
treated with complex, invasive bypass procedures. Less invasive procedures such
as angioplasty and stenting - in which
balloons are utilized to compress open plaque and deliver stainless steel
meshworks called stents - might be used for more straight-forward blocked
arteries.
With the advent of drug-eluting stents - stents coated with drugs that are
slowly delivered to the arterial wall - these rules no longer apply.
“Coronary stenting procedures are now being performed increasingly in
patients whose only previous options would have been open heart surgery,” said
Richard Zelman, M.D., F.A.C.C., director of interventional cardiology
at Cape Cod Healthcare.
Whereas balloon angioplasty has a 50 percent risk of the vessel renarrowing
and bare stents a 30 percent risk, drug-eluting stents have only a 5 to 10
percent risk. Dr. Zelman and the catheterization laboratories staff now
routinely perform procedures on three or four blocked arteries at a time, and
even upon the heart muscle's main artery.
With four new state-of-the-art interventional cardiology suites at Cape Cod
Hospital, along with the integrated diagnostic
catheterization facility at Falmouth Hospital, these highly complex patients
continue to have tremendously expanding options. Add to this the benefit derived
from many unique clinical research
trials, and Cape Cod cardiac patients can rest assured their hearts are
in the best hands.
Lowering the renarrowing
risks