balloon angioplasty
Meaning of balloon angioplasty: A narrowed artery reopened from the inside by a balloon threaded to the blockage on a fine wire, without opening the chest.
Definition of balloon angioplasty
Balloon angioplasty is a procedure that widens a narrowed or blocked artery from within. A thin catheter carrying a folded balloon is passed through the blood vessels to the narrowed segment, then inflated so it presses the fatty plaque outward against the vessel wall. The balloon is deflated and removed, leaving a wider channel through which blood can flow.
How is it done?
Access is gained through an artery in the wrist or the groin under local anesthetic. A fine guidewire is steered to the narrowing, watched on live X-ray images, and the balloon catheter runs over that wire. Inflation uses a liquid mix of contrast dye and salt solution rather than air, because liquid does not compress and the balloon can be seen. Pressure is held briefly, then released. The plaque is not removed; it is compressed and split, and the artery wall is stretched.
What is the difference between angioplasty and a stent?
| Balloon alone | Balloon with stent | |
|---|---|---|
| What is left behind | Nothing | A metal mesh tube |
| Vessel collapsing back | More likely | Held open |
| Renarrowing later | Higher rate | Lower, especially with drug coating |
| Blood thinning afterward | Shorter course | Longer course needed |
A stent is placed in most coronary cases now, mounted on the balloon and expanded by it. Balloon treatment alone still has a role, particularly in small vessels and in some limb arteries.
Why does the artery sometimes narrow again?
Stretching a blood vessel injures its lining. The wall responds by healing, and healing means new tissue growth into the channel that was just opened. This is restenosis, and it differs from the original disease: it is scar rather than fatty buildup. Stents coated with a drug that slows cell division were developed for this reason. Separately, the vessel can spring partly back to its old diameter within minutes, which is called recoil. Neither problem is the same as a fresh blockage, and the underlying atherosclerosis continues elsewhere in the arteries regardless of what happens at the treated spot.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
Balloon angioplasty was performed with subsequent stent deployment across the lesion.
Good to know
Angioplasty compresses and splits plaque rather than removing it, and it treats one narrowed segment while atherosclerosis elsewhere in the arteries is unchanged.
Word origin
Where “balloon angioplasty” comes from
Angioplasty joins the Greek angeion, a vessel, with plassein, to mold or shape.