What Is Cardiovascular Intervention? Meaning and Procedures
Cardiovascular intervention treats heart disease without surgery, using a thin catheter. Learn what it means and which procedures it includes.
Heart disease is one of the leading killers in the world, and according to available data, cases keep rising year after year. It does not strike only older people. Today it affects many young adults too, mainly because of lifestyle factors and a family history of heart disease.
As technology advances, heart treatment keeps getting updated. It no longer relies on surgery alone: heart conditions can now also be treated through cardiovascular intervention. Curious what cardiovascular intervention means and which procedures it covers? Here is a short overview.
What Cardiovascular Intervention Means
Not every heart patient is willing or financially able to undergo heart surgery. Some find the cost overwhelming, while others think twice because they fear the pain and trauma. Surgical technology is now more advanced and no longer needs an incision in the chest cavity, but the cost is far higher still.
Technology brings solutions here, including in healthcare, and cardiovascular intervention is one of them. Cardiovascular intervention is a non-surgical medical procedure in which a catheter, a thin, soft tube, is inserted into the heart.
The catheter is placed through the patient's blood vessels. The purpose is diagnostic, to find out what disease the patient has, or therapeutic, to treat a heart disorder or disease.
Procedures That Count as Cardiovascular Intervention
Given the definition above, heart surgery clearly does not fall into this category, because cardiovascular intervention is a non-surgical procedure.
So which procedures can be classed as cardiovascular intervention? Here are some of them:
- Stent placement for patients with peripheral artery disease.
- Valve replacement or widening for patients with heart valve disorders.
- Closure of a hole in the wall between the heart's upper chambers using an Atrial Septal Occluder, especially for patients with congenital heart disease.
- Pacemaker implantation.
- Stent placement for patients with coronary heart disease.
The best way to avoid any of these interventions is to keep your heart healthy. Have your heart checked regularly by a cardiologist so that any problem can be dealt with early. You can get routine heart checkups at Heartology Cardiovascular Center.
That is a short overview of what cardiovascular intervention means and some of the procedures it includes. We hope it reminds us all to look after our heart health.
For further examination, you can trust an experienced cardiologist in interventional cardiology, such as Dr. Denio Ridjab, who currently practices at Heartology as a cardiologist. He has experience in general and interventional cardiology, sports cardiology, heart disease prevention, valvular heart disease, heart failure and cardiomyopathy.
