Advanced CHIP Angioplasty Stenting Tackling challenging Heart Vessel Blocks without Bypass Surgery

What types of coronary artery blocks are typically treated with conventional angioplasty or bypass surgery?

Critical blocks in the coronary artery are typically treated with a catheter-based angioplasty stenting procedure or a bypass operation. During coronary angioplasty, a catheter inserted through the blood vessel in the wrist or groin is guided to the heart, and a drug-coated stent is passed through this catheter and deployed into the obstructed artery to restore blood flow.

In what scenarios might a patient be considered unsuitable for conventional angioplasty or bypass surgery?

Some blocks may be too complex for conventional angioplasty techniques. These may include hard calcification, long-standing complete occlusion, lengthier blocks requiring multiple stents, blocks at branching points of blood vessels, blocks involving the left main coronary artery, etc. Additionally, some patients may be unfit or high-risk candidates for bypass operation due to advanced age, very low pumping function of the heart, graft failure after previous bypass surgery, or comorbidities of lung/kidney/liver, etc.

What does CHIP stand for in the context of CHIP angioplasty?

The term CHIP stands for ‘Complex High-risk Indicated Percutaneous coronary intervention’. CHIP angioplasty is a state-of-the-art treatment for complex, challenging blocks or those who are unsuitable for conventional angioplasty or bypass surgery.

What are the techniques of CHIP angioplasty?

CHIP angioplasty is a highly advanced stenting procedure that employs various techniques and hardware to open up and restore blood flow in the blocked arteries, ensure successful outcomes, relieve symptoms, and improve quality of life. These include intravascular ultrasound (scanning inside the blood vessel lumen to visualise and characterise the nature of the blocks), rotablation (drilling the hard calcified blocks), lithotripsy (applying ultrasonic waves to crack the rock-hard blocks), and laser treatment (using light rays to open up rigid blocks). Even patients with severe pumping dysfunction who may be high-risk candidates for bypass surgery or other procedures can find relief through CHIP angioplasty, which may be carried out with the aid of temporary artificial pumps.

What are the merits of CHIP angioplasty?

Many challenging heart blood vessel blocks that had been declared untreatable with conventional angioplasty may now be treated with CHIP angioplasty, thereby avoiding bypass surgery wherever possible. This procedure is exclusively performed by experienced cardiologists in a few selected medical centres.