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Radial Angioplasty
Sedentary lifestyles coupled with incorrect eating habits have resulted in people experiencing heart related complications at ever-younger ages. Unclogging choked arteries, however, does not always need open heart surgery. Thanks to medical advances in techniques as well as in hardware, like thinner, tougher catheters and stents, patients can now be up and about in a matter of few days.
Since Dr. Melvin Judkins first developed it in the 1960s, angioplasty has remained the first line of defense in the cardiologist's armory, with tremendous success rate.
The procedure like all catheter-based therapy, utilizes the body's circulatory system as a highway–avoids open surgery by threading catheters into arteries'and clears a blockage with a balloon and places a stent to hold the artery open.
This highway can be accessed from several points, the femoral artery at the groin, being the largest, is the most commonly used. These angioplasters and femorialists vouch for the simplicity of this technique, which is prevailing for years together.
However, a search for deeply situated artery in obese patient can be a challenge and post procedure compression could be difficult. Occasionally, the arteries are blocked at the aorta level and hence radial angioplasty devised by Dr. Lucien Campeau, in 1980, is now emerging as a very convenient and patient friendly approach.
Known as the trans radial approach, the procedure utilizes the radial artery in the wrist instead of the femoral. Since the radial artery is close to the skin surface, even in the obese, this technique makes the initial puncture, as well as the post-procedure compression simple, straightforward, and safe. Unlike other options, the radial artery is not close to a major nerve, so the likelihood of nicking a nerve during the procedure is very low.
Patient does not have to be in bed following the procedure (as is required in groin approach) and thus can walk off the cath-lab procedure table and can ride back to office. In experienced hands, all this could be a boom to angioplasty patients.
It can be conveniently described as lunch break angioplasty! Not everyone, however, is a good candidate for radial angioplasty, so it's advisable to let your doctor do the choice.
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