A new method of measuring blood flow can help to boost the outcome of stents. The measuring of the blood flow can determine where stents need to be implanted.
Studies have shown that this new method is more effective than X-Ray examinations.
If you are considering having this procedure, your health care provider should be made aware of any problems.  Let them know if you have an allergy to shellfish or intravenous dye, have diabetes or kidney disease.
You will find more on this subject by clicking here Angioplasty.

Beautiful animated explanation courtsey MAYO CLINIC

How cool is this? A minimally-invasive transcatheter valve replacement procedure has been developed and tested for patients with congenital heart disease. And guess what? It doesn’t involve open heart surgery.
Many times patients that are born with such congenital heart diseases as right ventricular outflow tract and they face many procedures and surgeries, which usually consist of opening the chest to replace the damaged valves.
“We were able to successfully implant the Edwards SAPIEN transcatheter heart valve percutaneously in the first three patients treated in this trial. All of the patients are recovering and are expected to go home today,” said …read more

I have a sad but very true wake up call for all who think that heart disease is “just another hospital stay”. Now, I know that most of you understand the importance and seriousness of cardiac issues, but after thinking about this all day yesterday and most of last night, I feel the need to share it with you.
I had a female patients who at 51 years old has had 2 bypass’, 5 way each, surgeries, 16 stents placed, 18 catherizations in all, 5 MI’s, and an EF, ejection fraction, of 25%. So…. she might be …read more

If discontinuing anti-clotting medication after receiving a coated stent is a bad idea, wouldn’t it be better to get a stent that dissolves after a certain period of time? Some good reasons to get an absorbable stent:

You’d avoid having a foreign body inside your heart
The absorbable stent is more flexible and conforms to the shape of the coronary artery
A lower risk of late-stent thrombosis
Less potential scarring
Avoid the hassles a metal stent causes with CT and MRI scans

I’ve previously written about the Abbott XIENCE V Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System and today’s news is, I believe, …read more

An article in the New York Times discusses the higher than average rate of angioplasties in Elyria, Ohio which is mainly attributed to cardiologists at the local hospital.
Whether the preference for angioplasty is good for the patients of Elyria is open to medical debate. The cardiology group’s leader says the high rate of angioplasties is simply a function of his doctors’ detecting disease more often in their patients than physicians elsewhere might spot, and being quicker to intervene.
With heart disease being the number one killer in industrialized countries, cardiac healthcare easily earns doctors money which could be a motivating force …read more

This past week, FatBlogger told us about his mother who is back home after havin two stents* put in. He wrote a great post last week about heart disease in women.
Having a heart attack was a shock for my mom, as well as the rest of the family. To look at her, and her lifestyle, you would not think that she was a candidate. She is a healthy weight, probably under-weight if anything, active with the dog and gardening. However, she was a smoker and that contributed more than anything. Smoking shrinks the arteries and capillaries making it easier …read more