Bypass vs Angioplasty vs Heart Stent – Pros & Cons

The coronary arteries are the blood arteries of coronary transmission, which carries oxygenated blood to the core of the heart. If one or more of these blood vessels is obstructed, your heart won’t get the nutrients it requires. To remove the blockage, there are three major treatments.

• Bypass Surgery
• Angioplasty
• Heart Stent

 Bypass Surgery:

Heart bypass surgery, also known as Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG). It creates a bypass around a blocked artery by grafting a blood vessel between the aorta and the coronary artery, or arteries leading to the heart muscle to develop blood flow to your heart. It is somewhat usual to require two to four grafts, otherwise known as a double, triple or quadruple bypass.

• Pros:

There are several advantages of bypass surgery, such as:

1. It can reduce heart pain or cure it permanently.
2. It reduces the chances of a heart attack.
3. It provides additional liveliness for corporal activities.

• Cons:

Bypass surgery has few risks also, such as:

1. Heart attack
2. Stroke
3. Bleeding in or after the operation
4. Changes in heartbeats
5. Allergic effect on the anaesthesia or other equipment used in the operation
6. Injuries in nerves of torso, limbs, or legs
7. In exceptional cases, fatality

Angioplasty:

Angioplasty exercises a particular balloon and a metal lattice stent to open up a narrowed or blocked coronary artery. Angioplasty is occasionally used as an emergency cure for people that have had a heart attack.

• Pros:

Angioplasty has the following benefits:

1. It can be carried out in a deadly heart attack to re-establish blood flow to the heart and potentially save a life.
2. It can reduce and ease the signs of heart disease.
3. It may decrease the risk of potential stroke.
4. It can develop an overall kidney function.
5. It can avert gangrene by promoting blood flow to the legs.

•  Cons:

There are many negative aspects of Angioplasty mentioned below:

1. A few patients possibly will feel an allergic effect to their stent.
2. Blood vessels can turn out to be damaged where the catheter is inserted.
3. An artery can crumble or close.
4. Blood clots may appear in stents.
5. The more major arteries that are involved, the bigger the risk of deadly heart attack or stroke during the process.
6. Replicate measures can turn into essential if scar tissue develops inside the stent.
7. If angioplasty is not sufficient, coronary bypass surgery may be required.
8. A few patients can feel the side effects of the drugs given following the process.

Heart Stent:

A stent is a tiny metal or plastic pipe used to prop open a blocked coronary artery. When an increase of cholesterol blocks an artery, for instance, a stent may be used to re-establish the flow of blood and decrease the threat of heart attack.

•  Pros:

 There are many benefits of heart stents, such as:

1. It has been recognized that stents save thousands of lives every year worldwide. It is a therapeutic advantage that should be made voluntarily accessible to people so that they have an option at surviving heart attack through the slightest amount of expenditure.
2. Probability of survival is at least 30 percent high in the usage of the stent in the comparisons of other processes like dissolving of the clot with the help of the extremely costly medicine, thrombolysis.

•  Cons:

 Apart from these benefits, there are many drawbacks of heart stents also, such as: 

1. The reasonably lesser price of stent following the price slump has made it a needless preference of patients and hospitals in cases wherever it is not needed and wherever the clot might be cleared with the drug.
2. The stent is supposed to be used for devastating blocks in the particular vessel and in cases of several vessel blockages, open-heart surgery is supposed to be the perfect alternative.
3. Stent producers have to pitch in a huge part of the turnover into research for additional medically sophisticated stents and therefore price capping has influenced their objectives to a huge amount leading to extraction.

Dr. Balasubramani R, Consultant – Cardiac Surgery – Adult, Sahyadri Narayana Multispeciality Hospital, Shimoga