A person who has been taking medication for angina but is still experiencing frequent or severe chest pain may need either angioplasty to widen the narrowed artery, or coronary artery bypass surgery to create a different blood vessel for supplying the heart with blood.
Over the long run, the two procedures are equally successful in getting rid of chest pain and in preventing a heart attack or death. Angioplasty is an easier procedure to go through, however.
Some of its advantages are:
* Recovery is much shorter and less painful, requiring a one- or two-day hospital stay, compared to a stay for a week or more for bypass surgery.
* Angioplasty can be performed under local anesthesia (where the patient is sedated but awake), as opposed to general anesthesia (where the patient is asleep), which is needed for bypass surgery.
* The chest does not need to be opened, an advantage that substantially reduces pain, recovery time, and scarring.
* There is no need to use a heart-lung machine; this type of machine makes bypass surgery easier to do but increases the possibility of stroke.
Who Does Angioplasty Benefit?
# Angina pain that cannot be controlled by medication
# Severe narrowing of one or more arteries that poses a significant threat to a large area of heart muscle
# Severe narrowing of the left anterior descending artery (which supplies blood to a large part of the heart), but only if the heart muscle has not been significantly weakened by previous damage.
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