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    Coronary Angioplasty and Stenting

    Video Transcript

    SPEAKER: Your heart gets oxygen and nutrients from blood flowing through your arteries. But fatty deposits called plaque can build up in those vessels, reducing blood flow and keeping your heart from getting everything it needs. One treatment for this condition is coronary angioplasty and stenting. It opens narrowed arteries, allowing blood to flow freely again.

    When you have angioplasty, you will be awake but drowsy. Your doctor will insert a soft plastic tube into a large artery in your groin. Next, she'll thread a flexible guide wire through the tube, up through your circulatory system, and all the way to your narrowed artery. Then she'll thread a catheter over the wire.

    The catheter has a balloon on the end surrounded by an expandable mesh tube, or stent. She'll gently guide it to the narrowed part of the artery and inflate the balloon, which will press against the sides of the artery. The inflated balloon will then lock the stent into place so it will stay open and let blood flow freely again. The catheter will then be removed, and your doctor will stitch up the skin where it was inserted.

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