“Why do some patients need heart surgery after a heart attack?”
My father had a heart attack last year and the doctor brought him in for surgery once he was stable (he's still alive now, thank goodness). But why do some patients need surgery after a heart attack, while others don't? I know that he needed to have a few stents put in, but my friend who had a heart attack 3 years ago, didn't need to have heart surgery.
6 Answers
There are many reasons for surgery over stents and vice versa. If the patient is stable and the episode is not jeopardizing good functioning heart muscle you can do elective stents even urgent stents especially if the situation is stable but could become unstable. Urgent or emergency bypass is for a situation where things are unstable or might become so unpredictability. If there is active muscle dying you want to save it as quickly as possible. Lastly if there are a lot of coronary arteries with high grade obstruction. Just bypass all of then at the same time. Hope that answers your question.
To improve blood flow to areas in the heart.
They may have bad coronary disease
When patients with heart attack present to the hospital, they get a heart Cath by the cardiologists. Depending on the number of heart artery blockages decision is made to either stent or heart surgery. If you have more than 3 blockages, heart surgery is a better option.
When Angio shows high grade stenosis, it will require balloon angioplasty and stent or open coronary artery bypass surgery to prevent fatal heart attack.
Probably had significant disease in all of his coronary arteries. If so, would do better with complete revascularization (surgery).
