Are you suffering from complex heart blockage?
Is quality of your life getting limited by chronic total blockage in one of your arteries?
If you have been diagnosed with chronic total occlusion in one artery, bypass surgery is not the only solution.
Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) is build-up of complex total blockage with fatty deposits inside the walls of coronary artery for more than 3 months. It causes chest pain and breathlessness. Due to improved results of CTO angioplasty, patient with one coronary artery total blockage would not require bypass surgery.
This technique is currently infrequently performed owing to high technical difficulty and perceived risk of complications. However, with the advent of advanced technology and innovative percutaneous techniques, interventional cardiologists have improved the outcomes of percutaneous coronary intervention, making it a viable option for some patients who are experiencing symptoms related to their CTO.
Interventional cardiologists now are able to gently steer special guide wires and catheters across the blockages. In the last few years, the success rate of the approach has increased from about 60 percent to 90 percent. This is in comparison to the success rate of about 98 percent for angioplasty of non-total blockages.
Successful CTO–angioplasty performed by team of skilled interventional cardiologists can significantly improve a patient's quality of life, improve left heart function, reduce the need for subsequent bypass surgery, and possibly improve long-term survival. A number of factors must be taken into account for the selection of patients for CTO–angioplasty, including the extent of muscle supplied by that artery, the level of muscle viability, location of the CTO, and probability of procedural success.
Blog by
Dr. Sreekanth B. Shetty,
Senior Consultant- Interventional Cardiology,
Sakra World Hospital
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