Cardiac Procedures & Surgeries
Find the expert care you need close to home to relieve your symptoms of heart disease. Rely on our cardiologists to treat your condition with a minimally invasive heart procedure or heart surgery and get you back in action.
Angioplasty
To open a blocked artery, an angioplasty procedure may be recommended for you. During a balloon angioplasty, a special tube with an inflatable balloon is threaded into your coronary artery until it reaches the blockage. Then the balloon inflates to widen the blocked area and flatten any plaque in the way. (Plaque refers to fatty deposits made of cholesterol, calcium or other substances found in your blood. These can harden over time and restrict or even block blood flow.) The balloon gets deflated and removed from your artery.
Though less invasive than surgery, an angioplasty may still require an overnight hospital stay. Often, angioplasty is combined with a stent placement to prop the artery open.
Stent Placement
To help open a blocked or clogged artery, a small tube — called a stent — may be used. Though the stent stays in place permanently, it’s often used in conjunction with an angioplasty (which helps open the blocked artery initially). A stent helps increase blood flow and reduce chest pain, known as angina.
Cardiac Catheterization
If you’re having symptoms of a blocked or clogged coronary artery, a cardiac catheterization may be recommended for you. A small, thin tube, or catheter, is placed into a vein at your wrist, groin or neck, and then it’s threaded into your heart. From there, your cardiologist may do more diagnostic tests to see what kind of heart problem you may have, including:
- Locating any blockages in your arteries
- Measuring oxygen levels in different parts of your heart
- Monitoring how your heart pumps blood
- Taking a heart tissue sample
This procedure can also be used to treat a known heart condition and may be part of an angioplasty and stent placement procedure. Often, this is done in an outpatient setting and you are able to go home the same day.
A patent foramen ovale (PFO), or a hole in your heart that didn’t close properly after birth, leaves an opening between the right and left upper heart chambers. While most people don’t need treatment for this condition, a PFO closure procedure can help treat low blood oxygen levels and other rare complications like stroke. The Amplatzer™ PFO Occluder device, used to permanently close the hole, is inserted in a cardiac catheterization lab. Often, you can go home the day after the procedure.
When your heart’s mitral valve doesn’t close tightly enough, some of the blood can flow back into your heart chambers. This makes your heart work harder to push blood throughout your body, leading to a condition known as mitral regurgitation (MR). MitraClip, a transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVr) device, is a less-invasive option if you aren’t able to have an open surgery. The procedure takes place in a cardiac catheterization lab and you can usually go home the day after the procedure.
If you have carotid artery disease, but are at risk for open stent placement surgery, TCAR may be a good option for you. To reduce the risk of a stroke during the procedure, blood flow is temporarily directed away from your brain via a tube inserted into your carotid artery. By filtering the blood before returning it to a vein in your groin, dangerous debris is removed before reaching your brain. Then a stent is placed to stabilize the plaque and prevent future strokes. Often, you can return home the next day after the procedure.
When an aortic valve thickens and hardens, it limits (or narrows) the flow of blood from your heart to the rest of your body, which can lead to chest pain or even heart failure. Transcatehter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may be an option for you if you’re at risk for complications from an open-heart surgery (known as a surgical aortic valve replacement). The minimally invasive TAVR procedure replaces a narrowed aortic valve without removing the damaged valve (similar to how a stent is placed within a narrowed artery) and leaves all chest bones in place.
Often, a TAVR procedure requires a 2- to 5-day hospital stay to monitor your recovery.
This minimally invasive, permanent heart implant can help reduce the risk of stroke if you have atrial fibrillation (irregular, often rapid heart rate) that’s not caused by a heart valve issue. The one-time WATCHMAN implant is inserted into your left atrial appendage (LAA) to stop blood clots from entering your bloodstream. This procedure takes place in the cardiac catheterization laboratory, and most patients can go home the following day.