Angioplasty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Angioplasty - Essay Example ding of the procedure has helped this procedure to be acknowledged as safe, and at least in the short term, the success rate of this procedure is high (1999 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update), where successful therapy has been defined as persistence of less than 50% residual stenosis. However, despite the frequency of its usage, research has found that the main limitation of this procedure is restenosis which has been defined as renarrowing of the original arterial lesion at the site of dilatation. Most of the data indicate that around 35% of the patients have restenosis and within six months following the angioplasty procedure (Savage et al., 1998). To improve this statistic and to improve the life-threatening complications following angioplasty or to back up and improve the outcomes of results from balloon angioplasty, the use of stents came into vogue which essentially was balloon angioplasty with introduction of an implant into the arterial area of narrowing that would prevent the renarrowing of the arterial segment (Sculpher et al., 2002). The results of failure of angioplasty are many. The first important ones are unacceptable short and long-term clinical and angiographic outcomes. Next are the high rates of restenosis, high incidence of abrupt closure of the target vessels leading to life-threatening complications, and low incidence of target vessel revascularization, which happened to be the intended objective and indication of angioplasty as a procedure. Although there are numerous studies researching the implications of a failed angioplasty in the clinical scenario, despite having quite a number of studies, investigating the economic issues related to angioplasty as a procedure has been inadequate (Hannan et al., 1997). A second procedure during the same hospital stay, a failed procedure needing another, associated morbidities of a failed procedure all have negative implications for the patient or the providers, although all these scenarios adds to