the.com/angioplasty
Reopening a clogged pipe by inflating a tiny balloon inside your heart's plumbing.
means A medical procedure that widens a narrowed or blocked blood vessel, typically by threading a catheter with a tiny balloon to the site and inflating it to restore blood flow.
from Built from Greek parts: 'angeion' meaning vessel or container (the root behind words like 'angiogram'), plus 'plassein' meaning to mold or shape — the same root that gives us 'plastic.' So the word literally means 'vessel-shaping,' coined in the 20th century as doctors developed techniques to reshape the inside of arteries rather than cut them open.
- full method
- Catheter threaded from wrist or groin to the blockage
- usually paired with
- A stent left behind to keep artery open
- first performed
- 1977, by Andreas Gruentzig, on an awake patient
- recovery time
- Often home within a day, unlike bypass surgery