Does balloon angioplasty have risks?

In balloon angioplasty, you can see the same pattern emerging from not going back very far in the chain of causation. New problems occurred (sometimes coronary arteries dissect or rupture when the balloon is inflated, requiring a quick trip to the operating room for emergency bypass surgery), and the old problem often recurred or persisted. One third of arteries dilated by angioplasty will clog up again within four to six months, and this approach is expensive and invasive, although less so than bypass surgery. (Our program does not seem to affect whether or not these dilated arteries stay open, although it often benefits the nondilated arteries. The damage that the angioplasty balloon causes to the lining of the coronary artery appears to override the effects of lifestyle factors.) Although designed to prevent heart attacks, however, angioplasty sometimes causes it. In the first 3,000 cases, about 4.5 percent of the patients had a heart attack during angioplasty, and 8.8 percent required emergency bypass surgery.