Alternatives to Bypass Surgery

Coronary artery bypass grafting, a highly invasive and relatively dangerous surgical procedure, is often recommended to patients with multiple areas of blockage in their coronary arteries. This surgical procedure carries a significant risk of stroke, heart attack, and death. Even more troubling, the results of the bypass surgery degrade over time. Medical literature suggests a 20% loss of bypass grafts (particularly vein grafts) in the first post-operative year, with a loss of 3% per year in subsequent years. Thus, at 10 years, 50% of the initial bypass vein grafts are closed, and the patient is again in the precarious position from which he started, with many active and dangerous coronary blockages.

Coronary Stents This unfortunate situation is now completely avoidable. The advent of drug-eluting coronary stents has reduced the chance of recurrent disease in a treated arterial segment to about 5% for the life of the patient, with no late degradation. Thus, the use of drug-eluting stents to treat multiple coronary blockages is becoming the treatment of choice. However, safe performance of multi-vessel stenting requires highly trained and experienced operators.

The physicians at Interventional Cardiovascular Associates have been performing multivessel stenting for over 10 years, with among the lowest complication rates in the nation. We consider bypass surgery to be a last resort, and one which is almost never necessary. If you have been told that bypass surgery is the only therapeutic choice for your condition, please consult with us for a second opinion. In almost all cases, surgery can be avoided, and your coronary disease can be definitively treated with a low-risk, percutaneous procedure requiring a one day hospital stay, with no appreciable recovery time.

Before rushing to have a major surgical procedure, please consider the alternatives.

For more information on coronary stents, please contact our office.