Angioplasty
Angioplasty, or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), is a procedure to widen narrowed or blocked arteries. A catheter, inserted into an arm or leg artery, serves as a conduit for small inflatable balloons that are guided, via a monitor in the cath lab, into blocked or narrowed coronary arteries. Once at the area of blockage, the balloon is inflated to compress the cholesterol plaque buildup and open arteries to restore normal blood flow.

Percutaneous Coronary Stenting
St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospital’s interventional cardiologists have vast experience in using coronary artery stents in treating myocardial infarction, or heart attack, and also in preventing heart attacks if a blockage is previously discovered.

Stents are small, wire mesh tubes that provide support, similar to a scaffold, inside blocked or narrowed coronary arteries and hold them open. Stents are guided to the area of narrowing or blockage through a catheter that is inserted into an arm or leg artery. Once there, an inflatable balloon expands the stent and the artery is held open. Over a several-week period, an artery heals around the stent, and some, called drug eluting stents, contain medicine designed to reduce the risk of plaque building up in the artery again.

The use of stents in blocked or narrowed arteries produces little arterial trauma, and patients are generally discharged from the hospital the day after the procedure.

Data shows that 80 percent of patients who receive stents have low recurrence of arteries closing up again, and less than 10 percent require repeat interventions. Many of our patients receive stents in multiple vessels.

For a referral to an expert cardiologist at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, call 877.996.9334.