ABSTRACT
Aspirin, heparin • Prevent platelet aggregation. • Use for prophylaxis of blood clots particularly in unstable angina.
Coronary angioplasty • Uses a balloon catheter to open occluded blood vessels • Usually performed under local anesthetic • 5% mortality, high rate of vessel re-occlusion • Use of metal “stents” in opened vessel reduces rate of occlusion
Coronary artery bypass graft • Revascularization procedure in which a blood vessel is taken from
elsewhere in the body and surgically sutured around a blocked coronary artery
• May involve multiple (one to five) blood vessels • Re-occlusion of transplanted vessel is possible
• Ischemia — Inadequate blood flow to a tissue or part of the body.
