According to the American Heart Association, in 2006 alone, over 81 million Americans were diagnosed with heart disease. Heart attacks are no longer the disease of the elderly and cause one out of every three deaths, per the American Heart Association. Heart balloon procedures, or minimally invasive procedures using a small balloon to treat a heart disease, are commonly used when open heart surgery is not feasible or the disease extent does not warrant this drastic surgery.
Angioplasty
Commonly known as balloon angioplasty, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, or PTCA, is a heart balloon procedure performed in cardiac catherization laboratories. PTCA is used to open the coronary arteries, or the arteries that supply the heart with fresh blood; the blockage of these arteries leads to heart attacks. A tiny, oblong balloon sits at the tip of a catheter, which is used to inflate blocked, narrowed or collapsed coronary arteries. A cardiologist threads the catheter through a large artery in the groin up to the affected coronary artery, then inflates the balloon and pushes back the plaques, or fat deposits, that cause narrowing.
Stents
Whereas a PTCA can be performed without use of a stent, or a tiny mesh coil, a stent cannot be placed without a PTCA. The stent sits on the deflated balloon on the coronary catheter. The approach to placing a stent follows the pattern of the PTCA; a catheter is threaded through the groin artery to the collapsed or narrowed coronary artery. Once the stent and balloon combo is inserted into the narrowed artery, the cardiologist inflates the balloon, which opens and deploys the stent into the coronary artery. Stents are permanent; once the device is seated in a coronary artery, there is no removing it without removing the coronary artery, such as in open heart surgery.
Valvotomy
Four valves sit within the heart and regulate the flow of blood to the lungs and body. Of these four valves, the mitral valve controls the flow of blood from the lungs into the left ventricle, where it will be pumped throughout the body. If this valve is narrowed, or stenosed, the blood can back up into the lungs and cause complications. A surgery to correct this narrowing with use of a balloon device is a valvotomy. A tiny balloon is threaded through the large arteries of the leg into the narrowed valve and inflated repeatedly, stretching the valve opening. According to the ClevelandClinic.org, valvotomy can be performed on any of the four heart valves.
