Coronary Artery Disease
Coronary artery disease (cardiovascular disease) is one of the most common cardiac diseases and draws attention to the vital risks it poses. If it is not noticed in time and no measures are taken, a heart attack can be experienced. Life style changed with early diagnosis reduces the risk of developing the disease.
How Does it Occur?
Coronary artery disease is caused by the accumulation of cholesterol-containing fatty plaques in the wall of coronary arteries, which are the heart-feeding veins.
The process of fat accumulation in the vessel wall is called “atherosclerosis Dam. Atherosclerosis and the occlusion of the cardiovascular system cause the heart muscle to remain oxygen free and cause long-term heart failure.
What Do Coronary Arteries Do?
Your heart serves as a continuous pump and meets the blood needs of your whole body. To do this, the heart itself needs oxygen-rich blood. This blood is delivered to your heart through the coronary arteries. Briefly, the work of your heart depends on the blood presented by the coronary arteries.
You can think of the coronary arteries as the first branches of the aorta, the blood vessel that distributes blood from the heart to the whole body. The left coronary artery and right coronary artery are divided into smaller branches and feed the whole heart.
Healthy Artery
When the inner surface of a coronary artery is healthy, the blood flows easily from this vein. This allows your heart to be fed with the oxygen it needs. In case of activity, healthy arteries can easily meet the increasing need of the heart.
Damaged Artery
The inner layer of the artery can be damaged by high cholesterol, high blood pressure or smoking. This results in plaque formation in the arterial wall (fatty substances and calcium accumulation). Therefore, the blood does not flow as easily as before.
This is the beginning of coronary artery disease.
Narrowed Artery
As plaque formation increases, the artery is further narrowed and the blood flow to the heart muscle is greatly reduced. Oxygen starvation in the heart can cause chest pain.
A Clogged Artery
A heart attack (myocardial infarction) is passed when the narrowed artery is fully occluded with a clot. In the absence of oxygen-rich blood, the heart muscles in that area are permanently damaged.
Coronary Artery Disease Treatment
Three different treatment methods are applied to patients diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. These include drug therapy, percutaneous coronary interventions, and open heart surgery. The most appropriate treatment among these patients and the doctor decide together.
Medication
Cardiovascular disease has been undiagnosed (primary prevention) and drug therapy has been different in patients with (secondary prevention). Every cardiovascular patient needs to use 100-300 mg of aspirin every day. However, it is not recommended to use aspirin for every healthy person. Although it is only a healthy individual, it is recommended that people who have a 10-year heart attack above 6 percent should use aspirin.
Again, in primary prevention, it is important that patients regularly use diabetes and blood pressure medications. The initial and secondary prevention of cholesterol drugs is also different. Other used drug groups are almost the same.
Coronary angioplasty and stent applications
Coronary angioplasty (opening of the balloon) is the procedure of opening the local narrowing of the heart vessels by a non-surgical way.
By entering through the groin arteries, pushed into the veins of the heart and inserted through the ‘guide wire’, the deflated balloon is inserted into the region of the stenosis by sliding over this guide wire and inflated by external pressure (approximately 3 cm. In length and 3-4 mm wide). is happening.
Bypass
Coronary artery bypass surgery allows the heart to be re-fed by creating another path beyond the obstructed or narrowed artery. More than one bypass operation is performed in case of multiple occluded vessels.
The vessels to be used for bypassing, or other grafts, are attached to the occluded coronary artery by chest, heart or leg. Frequently used grafts are the breast artery taken from the chest wall, the aortic vein taken from the arm and the vein taken from the leg.
Minimally Invasive Methods
In endoscopic surgery, which is a minimally invasive technique, open heart surgeries can be performed with small incisions made on the chest with special endoscopic devices.
During the operation, surgical instruments are completely controlled by the surgeon.
Endoscopic procedure can be performed for coronary bypass surgery, valve repair, valve replacement procedures, heart hole closure and rhythm treatment.
Robotic Surgery
A robot that is developed for surgery aims at the operation of the surgeons. The main difference of robotic surgery from endoscopic surgery is that the surgeon operates on a monitor to operate the robot’s arms remotely.
During the surgery, the surgeon sits on a console where the patient can control the operation, which is located a little further on the table. It takes images from the console and moves the arms of the robot.
The surgeon, in the presence of these images, performs a difficult and sensitive operation by moving the other arms of the robot, which can move as a surgeon’s hand.
