Stints
Study: Clip safer than heart surgery
ATLANTA - Many Americans with leaky heart valves soon might be able to get them fixed without open-heart surgery. A study showed that a tiny clip implanted through an artery was safer and nearly as effective as surgery, doctors reported Sunday.
The device already is on sale in Europe, and its maker, Abbott Laboratories, hopes to win approval to sell it in the United States next year. Elizabeth Taylor reportedly got one last fall - the 77-year-old actress told fans about it on Twitter.
About 8 million people in the U.S. and Europe have leaky mitral valves - the valve between the heart's left upper and lower chambers. Not all are so bad they need treatment, but the worst cases can lead to heart failure over time.
In the study, six times more people who had surgery suffered complications during the next month than those who got Abbott's MitraClip. Deaths, strokes and blood transfusions were less common with the device. The clip was not dramatically less effective than surgery after one year.
Doctors called the study a watershed - the first big test of repairing or replacing heart valves through arteries rather than drastic surgery.
The MitraClip only is for the m
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Stints: Heart Disease Treatment Without Surgery
A stint is a tube of metal mesh that is used to keep an artery opening during angioplasty. The stint is first put over a balloon catheter and moved into the area that is blocked. The balloon is then inflated while the stint expands and locks into places forming a temporary frame. This will stay in the artery permanently and hold it open. It will improve the flow of blood to the heart and relieve many symptoms that one is having like chest pain. Within weeks, the lining of the artery will begin to grow over the stint.
Stints are used patients and depend on the size of the artery and where the blockage is located. Inserting a stint is a very common procedure and over 70 percent of coronary angioplasty procedures include the placement of a ...
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