How to Widen an Artery

Narrowed arteries are a killer. As cholesterol and fatty deposits called plaque build up on the inside of an artery, it becomes easier and easier for a small blood clot to get caught and block the artery entirely. If this happens on an artery leading to the heart, this injures the heart muscles and causes a heart attack. Committing to a lifestyle of healthy eating, plenty of exercise and no smoking can prevent arteries from narrowing in the first place. If narrowing does happen, though, a noninvasive surgical procedure can open them back up.

Instructions

• 1

  Bring the patient into an operating theater equipped with an X-ray machine and an angioplasty catheter.

• 2

  Choose a site to make a small incision into the patient's artery.

• 3

  Inject a local anesthetic at the incision site and wait for it to take effect.

• 4

  Cut an incision into the artery and insert an introducer sheath, which is a small, rigid tube.

• 5

  Pass a cardiac catheter--a thin, flexible tube with an inflatable balloon at the end--through the introducer sheath and into the artery.

• 6

  Guide the catheter to the narrow spot in the artery by watching it on an X-ray machine.

• 7

  Scrape the plaque from the narrow spot using small blades at the tip of the catheter. This is done with a spinning, blade-tipped catheter in a procedure called percutaneous transluminal rotational atherectomy, or by inflating a blade-covered cutting balloon at the catheter end.

• 8

  Hold the artery open by inflating a balloon wrapped in a metal mesh tube, called a stent, at the tip of the catheter. The stent will be pressed into the artery wall hard enough to stay behind and keep the artery open when the balloon is deflated and the catheter removed.

• 9

  Guide the catheter back out of the patient's arteries, using the X-ray machine to track its progress.

• 10

  Remove the introducer sheath and close the incision.