What is Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), also referred to as coronary angioplasty or balloon angioplasty, is a procedure that opens narrowed or blocked blood vessels of the heart by compressing the fatty build-up against the artery wall.
Protected Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) is a procedure using the application of Protected Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) with Impella, the world’s smallest heart pump, can serve as a viable option by relieving arterial congestion and significantly improving blood flow to the heart and other critical organs.
In traditional angioplasty, a heart physician inflates a small balloon in the restricted portion of the artery. The expanded balloon reopens the artery, enabling its blood to flow normally.
For some patients, though, the condition of their heart disease is too severe for traditional PCI, and heart surgery would pose too great a risk. For them, Protected PCI might be an option.
A relatively new, but widely accepted procedure, PCI uses Impella to temporarily assist the heart’s pumping function. Placed through the femoral artery, the Impella heart pump helps ensure blood flow is maintained to critical organs such as the brain and kidneys during a PCI procedure.
Impella gives the heart muscle a rest. It reduces the heart’s workload for the procedure’s duration and prevents overstress while the coronary artery blockages are relieved.
Percutaneous coronary intervention is a procedure that opens narrowed or blocked blood vessels of the heart by compressing the fatty build-up against the artery wall.
About the procedure
Once the cardiologists know the location of the blockage, they thread a guide wire through that same artery and advance it across the blockage. This allows them to slip the balloon-tipped catheter over the guide wire and advance it to the blockage. Then they inflate the balloon at the site of the blockage inside the artery. This flattens or compresses the plaque against the artery wall and opens up the artery. Doctors may inflate and deflate the balloon a number of times. At the end of the procedure, they remove the catheter, wire and deflated balloon. The widening of the artery allows for increased blood flow to the regions of the heart served by the vessel.