coronary angioplasty

Picture a kinked garden hose that you widen by pushing an inflatable plug through it and gently expanding it. Coronary angioplasty does something similar inside a heart artery: a small balloon is inflated at the site of a narrowing to squash the obstructing plaque against the vessel wall and restore the channel for blood.

The balloon sits on the tip of a catheter and is positioned across the narrowed segment under X-ray guidance. When inflated for a short time, it stretches the artery and compresses the fatty, calcified plaque, widening the lumen. In modern practice angioplasty is almost always followed by placing a stent, because a balloon alone often leaves the artery prone to springing back or re-narrowing.

Angioplasty is the foundational step of percutaneous coronary intervention. Balloon-only treatment is still used in special situations — for example in very small vessels, inside a previously placed stent, or with drug-coated balloons that deliver medication without leaving metal behind.