Heart Attacks and other heart-related diseases are increasing day by day. You can find at least one patient in every second home in Pakistan. According to World Health Ranking, Pakistan is in 18th rank for cardiac diseases.
In Pakistan, every year 251,220 deaths occur due to cardiac arrest. This is such a big figure and we should look for it as it’s a threatening situation for all of us.
Our poor eating habits and lifestyles lead to the collection of fatty substances in the body and these substances form plaque in the inner arteries of the heart. After building up a plaque, arteries become stiff, thickened, and narrower.
These thick and narrower arteries stop the blood flow to the heart and even sometimes block it and cause a heart attack. A cardiac stent is an expendable tool that is used to treat your stiff and narrower arteries and increase the blood flow to the muscles of your heart. Open arteries restore the blood flow to heart muscles without open-heart surgery and help in heart disease prevention.
After a heart attack, your doctor inserted this tube during angioplasty, it is a non-surgical and minimally dangerous procedure.
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3 Types of Stents
Dr. Muhammad Kashif Zafar who is one of the best cardiologists in Pakistan says that Cardiac Stent is a tool that helps you to restore your blood flow to the heart muscles. It has three types that are available on the market. Doctors use local anesthesia with patients to install it into the artery. Here are three types of stents are,
- Drug-Eluting Stent (DES)
- Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold (BVS)
- Bare Metal Stent (BMS)
Let’s begin with a Drug-eluting stent that is easily available on the market.
Drug-Eluting Stent
DES is a coronary stent that is released in the lining of the artery during the process to stop the growth of fatty substances. It is coated with medication that helps the artery to stay smooth, wide, and open. It activates the good flow of blood to the heart muscles and decreases the risk of narrowing arteries.
DES has a slow healing process and due to the risk of stent thrombosis, Doctors use drug therapy. Patients should follow the instructions of their doctor during drug therapy and this therapy lasts for at least 12 months.
Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffold-BVS
Bioresorbable stent BVS is an advancement of a famous drug-eluting type of stent is Bioresorbable Scaffold. FDA-approved the BVS and it is a widely popular type of stent that disappears and reabsorbs into your body after completing its job.
As we learn before DES is a medicine-coated stunt, the same goes for BVS. The best cardiologists at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology say that BVS is a drug-coated stent that is introduced into a polymer and then reabsorbed and disappears in the body over time.
This stent also helps to decrease the possibility of narrowing arteries. This scaffold dissolved on its own and was invented to control the barriers of metallic stents such as vessel caging.
Bare Metal Stent-BMS
The last type of cardiac stent is Bare Metal Stent BMS which has no medicine coating. They work during angioplasty as a frame to open the closed blood vessels.
After the angioplasty procedure tissues grow and cover the stent. This way tissues help it to stay in its place. Sometimes the extra growth of tissues within the artery increases the occurrences of artery blockage again.
Insertion of Cardiac Stent
After taking the cholesterol level test and other cardiac tests, doctors use local anesthesia to insert a stent into a closed artery. During surgery, they made a small cut in your arm and neck, and then they put a thin tube with a stent and balloon on the tip.
While the insertion specialist monitors to move the thin tube through your blood vessels to closed and narrowed arteries. After this, a thin tube expands the stent into the artery and stretches it to its flexibility, and helps to open the artery. This open artery increases the blood flow to the heart muscles. In the end, your doctor will release the gas out of the balloon, remove the thin tube, and leave the stent behind.
Now after this procedure, this stent prevents the free-floating of plaque within the bloodstream. According to the type of stent, whether it’s absorbed and disappeared or it fixed itself on the place. Doctors give drug therapy and suggest suitable medicine that helps from the clotting within the artery. Your artery starts healing slowly and the growth of tissues maintains the strength of your artery.
A drug-eluting stent is the most common and suggested by the cardiologist. It is drug-coated and lowers the chances of closed and narrower arteries.
Benefits of Cardiac Stent
These stents work as a lifesaver and increased blood flow prevents your heart muscles from further damage. It also helps to relieve the symptoms of heart diseases like chest pain and shortness of breath.
In some cases, it also saves you from bypass surgery which is actually an open heart surgery. Stents are a less dangerous treatment as compared to bypass. With cardiac stents, you take only a few days to recover while if you have bypass surgery you will stay in bed for a minimum of six weeks.
Risk of Cardiac Stenting
There are some risk factors that you should know, we are not here to scare you but before going through any medical procedure you should be aware of some facts.
- You may experience an allergic reaction to the medication or surgical instruments.
- The procedure can cause bleeding and sometimes damage to your heart and blood vessels.
- It irregulates the heartbeat and causes shortness of breath.
- It can also cause heart attack, kidney failure, and stroke
Suggested Read: Link Between Kidney and Heart Disease
Things You Should Consider
Cardiac stents are an amazing treatment for opening your arteries but it is not a long-term cure for your heart disease. You still have to check and balance some facts such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and obesity. Besides drug therapy, your doctor will suggest some healthy lifestyles to prevent you from post complications. These suggestions are following
- A Healthy and balanced diet
- 30 minutes of regular exercise
- Stop smoking
Control of cholesterol and Blood pressure and these healthy lifestyles can prevent you from heart diseases but in case of any complications, you may like to contact the Best cardiologist in Lahore.
