How can I be sure I really need a stent?

A stent is a metal, mesh tube that is used to prop open an artery after a blockage in the artery is cleared through a procedure called angioplasty. During angioplasty, a catheter - a thin, flexible tube - is inserted through a puncture site in the skin and threaded through the artery to the site of a blockage. A small balloon at the tip of the catheter opens and closes to push aside the blockage and restore blood flow through the artery.

Stents are used to treat life-threatening and non-life-threatening blockages in arteries. In terms of life-threatening blockages, a stent is the standard of care for treating a heart attack in progress. If you arrive at the hospital and are having a heart attack, angioplasty and stenting can stop the heart attack, saving heart muscle from damage and potentially saving your life.

Determining whether you need a stent to treat non-life-threatening blockages will involve conversations between you and your interventional cardiologist - the heart doctor who performs angioplasty and stenting and other catheter-based procedures. Your interventional cardiologist will evaluate any blockages that you may have in arteries based on diagnostic tests, your individual risk factors and medical history, and professional practice guidelines and appropriateness criteria - treatment standards developed by the world’s leading cardiologists.

You and your interventional cardiologist can discuss treatment recommendations and likely outcomes, as well as how aggressively you wish to treat non-life-threatening blockages. The goal is to find the right, individualized treatment for you.