Most cardio-vascular conditions can be treated today as a minimally invasive endovascular procedure in the cath lab. Instead of an open chest as operating field, the interventional cardiologist uses an artery, most likely the wrist artery, as entrance to our heart vessels.
Since the 1980’s when first performed by Prof. Andreas Grüntzig, this procedure has evolved from simple diagnostic measures to stent implantation, heart valve procedures and heart deffect repair and also more complex heart vessel treatments like the CTO (chronic target lesion occlusion), where the chronic occlusion of a vessel is being approached from two sides.
Our interventional team composed of Dr. Bernd Reisbeck and Dr. Juan Luis Gutiérrez-Chico are a highly specialized team in complex CTO procedures, this way often saving patients from invasive open heart surgery and the prolonged convalescent time.
Atherosclerosis is the disease of the vessels in our body causing an impaired circulation to certain areas and organs. Most commonly known are the blockages in the heart causing heart attacks and the blockage of a brain artery, causing a sudden stroke. Less known however the blockages of our leg vessels, causing pain when walking.
These problems go undiagnosed simply because the patient himself is falsely attributing these symptms to growing age and deconditioning. Fact is that this problem can be solved easilly in a short, minimally invasive procedure in the cath lab.
One of our patient has been told 20 years ago that nothing can be done to reopen his occluden artery in his leg, he should walk and stop smoking. Placing a stent last week into the main vessel behind the knee reopened circulation to his entire right leg enabling him to play golf like never before – indeed he refers to his „new“ leg now and his „new“ life starting at age 81!
At CardioCare we pre-examine the patients who reports typical symptoms first with a color-doppler ultrasound examination followed by an Angio-CT (vascular computer tomography) performed at the HC-radiology department. The CT images will confirm the diagnosis and show the exact anatomy of large and small vessels, enabling the interventional radiologist to plan the interventional procedure. This will be performed in a one hour session, a small needle will access the groin artery and after one night in the hospital, the patient will „walk“ home.
Dr. José Rodríguez Mesa is a specialist in interventional radiology and has been part of our team since the opening of our interventional cath lab in May 2019. We are proud of our collaboration which continues to grow and extend into new areas of interventional radiology.
Consultations are being carried out in English, German and Spanish, if you have any questions, please make an appointment with the vascular department of CardioCare at HC Marbella International Hospital.
July 2, 2020
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