Public health talk tackles angioplasty and bypass surgery

HONG KONG -- Heart disease is the number 1 "Killer" in the world and ranks the second in Hong Kong just after cancer. 70% of the heart disease patients are suffering from coronary heart disease. At the peak season of heart attack, the attack rate is very much higher than in summer. Patients need to pay extra attention on diet control and keeping warm, and closely monitor the physical condition to prevent acute myocardial infraction (heart attack).

Care For Your Heart, a cardiac patients mutual support association in Hong Kong, said most of the cardiac patients in Hong Kong do not have enough knowledge of coronary artery disease. They seem dazed, confused and overwhelmed when encountering attack and different treatment options, delay in treatment could be life-threatening.

This winter, Care For Your Heart invited cardiology specialist Andy Chan Wai Kwong M.D. to be the speaker of a public health talk, introducing the two treatments for coronary artery disease – Angioplasty and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery.

Coronary heart disease is the result of the accumulation of fat and cholesterol caused stenosis or occlusion in the coronary arteries, this process is called "coronary atherosclerosis". Poor blood flow may lead to myocardial hypoxia, myocardial necrosis or sudden death in more serious cases. The main causes of coronary heart disease including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, life stress, too much pressure, obesity, lack of exercise, diabetes, and familial, etc.

There are three different types of treatments for treating coronary heart disease. At initial stages, patients are usually placed under medical treatment using aspirin or nitroglycerin tablets to relieve symptoms. In terms of surgical treatments there are angioplasty and bypass surgery.

Angioplasty, also known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), is the most common treatment for coronary heart disease. PCI is a non-invasive and less traumatic procedure, recovery is relatively faster than invasive surgery. A long and thin steel wire is inserted, and the balloon catheter is put to enter into cardiac artery through femoral artery or hand radial artery, it is advanced through the site of arterial stenosis, then distended and dilate the artery to restore the blood flow. Following by implantation of coronary stent to provide scaffolding to the arterial wall, this ensures the artery remains open and will prevent future re-narrowing or blockage of the artery.

Currently, there are three types of stent available in most of the medical institutions in 2019 Air Vapormax Flair