Angioplasty, is also known as balloon angioplasty and percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), is a minimally invasive endovascular procedure used to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries or veins, typically to treat arterial atherosclerosis. A deflated balloon attached to a catheter is passed over a guide-wire into the narrowed vessel and then inflated to a fixed size. The balloon forces expansion of the blood vessel and the surrounding muscular wall, allowing an improved blood flow. A stent may be inserted at the time of ballooning to ensure the vessel remains open, and the balloon is then deflated and withdrawn. Angioplasty has come to include all manner of vascular interventions that are typically performed percutaneously.
Arteriosclerosis is the thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the walls of arteries. This process gradually restricts the blood flow to one's organs and tissues and can lead to severe health risks brought on by atherosclerosis, which is a specific form of arteriosclerosis caused by the buildup of fatty plaques, cholesterol, and some other substances in and on the artery walls. It can be brought on by smoking, a bad diet, or many genetic factors.
A coronary catheterization is a minimally invasive procedure to access the coronary circulation and blood filled chambers of the heart using a catheter. It is performed for both diagnostic and interventional (treatment) purposes.
dextro-Transposition of the great arteries is a potentially life-threatening birth defect in the large arteries of the heart. The primary arteries are transposed.
Restenosis is the recurrence of stenosis, a narrowing of a blood vessel, leading to restricted blood flow. Restenosis usually pertains to an artery or other large blood vessel that has become narrowed, received treatment to clear the blockage and subsequently become renarrowed. This is usually restenosis of an artery, or other blood vessel, or possibly a vessel within an organ.
Interventional cardiology is a branch of cardiology that deals specifically with the catheter based treatment of structural heart diseases. Andreas Gruentzig is considered the father of interventional cardiology after the development of angioplasty by interventional radiologist Charles Dotter.
Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) or intravascular echocardiography is a medical imaging methodology using a specially designed catheter with a miniaturized ultrasound probe attached to the distal end of the catheter. The proximal end of the catheter is attached to computerized ultrasound equipment. It allows the application of ultrasound technology, such as piezoelectric transducer or CMUT, to see from inside blood vessels out through the surrounding blood column, visualizing the endothelium of blood vessels.
Andreas Roland Grüntzig was a German radiologist and cardiologist, with foundational interest, training and research in epidemiology and angiology. He is known for being the first to develop successful balloon angioplasty for expanding lumens of narrowed arteries. He was born in Dresden.
Cardiac catheterization is the insertion of a catheter into a chamber or vessel of the heart. This is done both for diagnostic and interventional purposes.
A catheterization laboratory, commonly referred to as a cath lab, is an examination room in a hospital or clinic with diagnostic imaging equipment used to visualize the arteries of the heart and the chambers of the heart and treat any stenosis or abnormality found.
Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a non-surgical procedure used to treat narrowing of the coronary arteries of the heart found in coronary artery disease. The process involves combining coronary angioplasty with stenting, which is the insertion of a permanent wire-meshed tube that is either drug eluting (DES) or composed of bare metal (BMS). The stent delivery balloon from the angioplasty catheter is inflated with media to force contact between the struts of the stent and the vessel wall, thus widening the blood vessel diameter. After accessing the blood stream through the femoral or radial artery, the procedure uses coronary catheterization to visualise the blood vessels on X-ray imaging. After this, an interventional cardiologist can perform a coronary angioplasty, using a balloon catheter in which a deflated balloon is advanced into the obstructed artery and inflated to relieve the narrowing; certain devices such as stents can be deployed to keep the blood vessel open. Various other procedures can also be performed.
A drug-eluting stent (DES) is a peripheral or coronary stent placed into narrowed, diseased peripheral or coronary arteries that slowly release a drug to block cell proliferation. This prevents fibrosis that, together with clots (thrombi), could otherwise block the stented artery, a process called restenosis. The stent is usually placed within the peripheral or coronary artery by an interventional cardiologist or interventional radiologist during an angioplasty procedure.
The history of invasive and interventional cardiology is complex, with multiple groups working independently on similar technologies. Invasive and interventional cardiology is currently closely associated with cardiologists, though the development and most of its early research and procedures were performed by diagnostic and interventional radiologists.
Obstructive uropathy is a structural or functional hindrance of normal urine flow, sometimes leading to renal dysfunction.
A coronary stent is a tube-shaped device placed in the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart, to keep the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart disease. It is used in a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Coronary stents are now used in more than 90% of PCI procedures. Stents reduce angina and have been shown to improve survivability and decrease adverse events in an acute myocardial infarction.
Julio Palmaz is a doctor of vascular radiology at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He studied at the National University of La Plata in Argentina, earning his medical degree in 1971. He then practiced vascular radiology at the San Martin University Hospital in La Plata before moving to the University of Texas Health and Science Center at San Antonio. He is known for inventing the balloon-expandable stent, for which he received a patent filed in 1985. It was recognized in Intellectual Property International Magazine as one of "Ten Patents that Changed the World" in the last century. His early stent research artifacts are now part of the medical collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He continues to innovate on his initial designs, developing new endovascular devices.
Biotronik is a limited partnership multi-national cardiovascular biomedical research and technology company, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
Ulrich Sigwart is a retired cardiologist known for his pioneering role in the conception and clinical use of stents to keep blood vessels open, and introducing a non-surgical intervention, alcohol septal ablation for the treatment of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy.
A ureteric balloon catheter is a balloon catheter intended for treating strictures of the ureter. In fact it is a double J stent on which a balloon is mounted. It is connected to a delivery device (pusher) to introduce it from the bladder into the ureter. The system comprises a non-return valve device, and a pusher with a stylet and two ports.
Balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA) is an emerging minimally invasive procedure to treat chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) in people who are not suitable for pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE) or still have residual pulmonary hypertension and areas of narrowing in the pulmonary arterial tree following previous PTE.
