Tag Archives: percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty

Dear Sirs, Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity, and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a mainstay of treatment. The management of IHD has been revolutionised by major advancements in the field of coronary angioplasty, starting with the use of balloons for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) in 1977 by Gruentzig.1 However, their use was limited by acute recoil (approximately 40%), vessel dissection and a high re-stenosis rate (50%). To treat the acute problems of recoil and dissection (with acute vessel closure) and reduce the rate of re-stenosis, coronary stents were introduced

So there I was, sitting in one of our twice-weekly multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings. I was proffering my sixpence worth on the merits of surgery (coronary artery bypass graft [CABG]) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) (occasionally neither, and – rarely – both), as a succession of clinical data, scans of various types and coronary angiograms were laid before us. And I got to thinking, “is this the way it should be?” We have come a long way in tailoring treatment to patients. When PCI, or percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) as it was then, emerged as a young and promising technique in the late seventies

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