I'm getting a cardiac catheterization. If my heart is blocked, what's the better treatment, angioplasty or bypass surgery?

Answer From Rekha Mankad, M.D.

Multimedia

During cardiac catheterization, a health care professional looks at images of the inside of the heart arteries, called the coronary arteries. If the arteries are narrowed, treatment choices depend on many factors, including:

  • How bad the coronary artery disease is.
  • Symptoms, such as chest pain and shortness of breath.
  • How well the heart works.
  • Other medical conditions, such as heart valve disease, diabetes, kidney disease, peripheral artery disease, or prior stroke or heart attack.

For some people, medicines and lifestyle changes may be the first treatments, especially if only one artery is narrowed.

In others, angioplasty and stenting may be needed if chest pain, called angina, due to reduced blood flow has not improved with medicines and lifestyle changes. During angioplasty, a health care professional puts a tiny balloon in at the site of the blockage and expands it. This widens the narrowed artery.

Usually a small metal coil called a stent is placed in the artery. The stent keeps the artery open. It also reduces the risk of renarrowing.

If your arteries are narrowed or blocked in several areas, you might need coronary bypass surgery. This also might be true if you have a blockage in one of the larger main arteries.

During bypass surgery, a surgeon creates a new path for blood to flow around a blocked or partially blocked artery in the heart. The surgery involves taking a piece of healthy blood vessel from inside the chest wall or lower leg area. The vessel is connected below the blocked heart artery. The bypass improves blood flow to the heart muscle.

With

Rekha Mankad, M.D.

From Mayo Clinic to your inbox

Sign up for free and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips, current health topics, and expertise on managing health. Click here for an email preview.

To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

Sept. 01, 2023 See more Expert Answers

See also

  1. Angina
  2. Angina treatment: Stents, drugs, lifestyle changes — What's best?
  3. Calcium supplements: A risk factor for heart attack?
  4. Cardiac catheterization
  5. Chest pain
  6. Coronary angiogram
  7. Coronary angioplasty and stents
  8. Coronary artery bypass surgery
  9. Coronary artery disease
  10. What is coronary artery disease? A Mayo Clinic cardiologist explains.
  11. Coronary artery disease FAQs
  12. Coronary artery spasm: Cause for concern?
  13. Coronary calcium scan
  14. Drug-eluting stents
  15. Echocardiogram
  16. Ejection fraction: What does it measure?
  17. Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG)
  18. Flu Shot Prevents Heart Attack
  19. Four Steps to Heart Health
  20. Heart and Blood Health
  21. Heart attack
  22. Heart attack prevention: Should I avoid secondhand smoke?
  23. Heart attack symptoms
  24. Heart Attack Timing
  25. High blood pressure dangers
  26. Niacin to improve cholesterol numbers
  27. NSAIDs: Do they increase my risk of heart attack and stroke?
  28. Pseudoaneurysm: What causes it?
  29. Shortness of breath
  30. Silent heart attack
  31. Stress test
  32. Symptom Checker
  33. Coronary angioplasty