Coronary Artery Balloon angioplasty is one of the breakthrough procedures that has significantly changed the way physicians treat coronary artery disease, often avoiding the more complex bypass surgery for countless thousands of patients.

The term "plasty" is used in medical terms to describe procedures that change the configuration or shape of a structure. Thus, the term "angioplasty" literally means to change the configuration of an artery, and "coronary" means that the arteries that serve the heart muscle are the focus of treatment. The "balloon" technique for angioplasty takes advantage of the same catheter-based access used for the diagnostic arteriograms. But instead of using the catheter only as a channel for injection of the contrast dye, balloon angioplasty involves the insertion of a tiny, deflated balloon-tipped catheter into a narrowed coronary artery to widen the channel for blood flow.

Coronary artery balloon angioplasty was the first catheter-based treatment procedure and has been used safely for more than 20 years. The procedure takes place in the cardiac catheterization laboratory and, as in the diagnostic procedure, you are awake during the treatment. A mild sedative is given, and the site of catheter insertion is numbed with a local anesthetic. Once the balloon catheter is positioned at the site of narrowing or obstruction, the balloon is inflated, compressing the obstructing plaque back against the vessel walls. Depending on the number of arteries requiring treatment, the procedure may take about one hour, including additional arteriograms to ensure that adequate blood flow has been re-established through all treated vessels.