Heart Health
Why choose bypass surgery over stents?
Ask the doctor
Q. I take medications to treat my high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but I still feel chest pain whenever I walk uphill. A cardiac catheterization showed serious narrowing in all three of my main heart arteries. Should I receive stents, or would it be better to have bypass surgery?To place a stent, an interventional cardiologist passes a catheter through an artery in the upper thigh or the wrist, maneuvers the tiny mesh tube up to the heart, then opens the blocked vessel with a tiny balloon, using the stent to prop the artery open. The alternative is open heart surgery, in which a cardiac surgeon uses an artery or vein taken from elsewhere in the body to reroute blood around the blocked artery. This is known as coronary artery bypass grafting, also referred to as CABG (pronounced "cabbage") or bypass surgery.
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About the Author
Christopher P. Cannon, MD, Editor in Chief, Harvard Heart Letter; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Harvard Health Publishing
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