title: Coronary angioplasty and surgery for coronary artery disease.
abstract: Heart disease remains the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. During the 1970s until the early 1980s, patients with angina pectoris refractory to medical therapy could only consider bypass surgery to relieve their symptoms. Beginning in the early 1980s, coronary balloon angioplasty became an alternative to bypass surgery in those with single vessel coronary artery disease and failure to medical therapy. In the mid-1980s, patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease also were seen to benefit from balloon angioplasty. Now in the 1990s, balloon angioplasty's success is being compared to coronary bypass with prospective randomized trials. While balloon angioplasty has become relatively easy to perform due to advances in balloon, wire, and guiding catheter technology, many new interventional devices such as atherectomy and laser, are now available. The explosion in technology reflects our inability to prevent atherosclerotic disease and also reveals that while we can improve a patient's lifestyle and in some situations improve mortality rate, atherosclerotic disease remains a disease for which we have no cure.
authors.forename: L P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Maxwell
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Hill
mesh_terms: D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000601:surgery; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D012770:Shock, Cardiogenic / Q000601:surgery