How is Percutaneous coronary intervention performed?
Before the percutaneous coronary intervention procedure begins, you will be given some pain medicine. You may also be given blood thinning medicines to prevent a blood clot from forming.
You will lie on a padded table. Your doctor will insert a flexible tube (catheter) through a surgical cut into an artery. Sometimes the catheter will be placed in your arm or wrist. You will be awake during the procedure.
The doctor will use live x-ray pictures to carefully guide the catheter up into your heart and arteries. Dye will be injected into your body to highlight blood flow through the arteries. This helps the doctor see any blockages in the blood vessels that lead to your heart.
A guide wire is moved into and across the blockage. A balloon catheter is pushed over the guide wire and into the blockage. The balloon on the end is blown up (inflated). This opens the blocked vessel and restores proper blood flow to the heart.
A wire mesh tube (stent) may then be placed in this blocked area. The stent is inserted along with the balloon catheter. It expands when the balloon is inflated. The stent is left there to help keep the artery open.
The stent may be coated with a drug (called a drug-eluting stent). This type of stent may lower the chance of the artery closing back up in the future. However, drug-eluting stents are slightly more likely to close in the short-term. Currently, they are only used for certain patients. </s>