Is heart bypass surgery better than stent? how to choose between them ?
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Hello, Is heart bypass surgery better than stent? how to choose between them ? My uncle has been diagnosed with atherosclerosis and heart blockage. He needs to undergo this procedure. Please leave your comments.
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@apyayee It's your doctor's call, but it's good to understand, and to weigh, your options. The heart's three coronary arteries are not all equal. The most important artery is called the left anterior descending artery (LAD). It feeds blood to the whole front wall of the heart, which represents much more muscle than the area fed by either of the other two coronary arteries. A narrowing or blockage in the LAD is more serious than narrowing or blockage in the other arteries. Bypass surgery usually is the best choice for a blocked LAD. If the LAD is not blocked, and there are no other complicating factors, stents are more likely to be used, even if both of the other arteries are blocked. If you have two blocked vessels and one is the LAD, especially the upstream portion, the data support bypass surgery, but not as convincingly as for the patient with three-vessel disease. There are issues like whether both vessels can be easily treated with stents, or whether the patient has other risk factors. One major factor is that LAD bypass uses another artery—the mammary artery, located in the chest near the heart—for the graft. Complications are rare, and CABG using the mammary artery lasts for decades. Moreover, for reasons still unknown, the mammary artery is nearly immune to blockage.