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Which is more serious, stents or open heart surgery?
I'm trying to give my girlfriend a little hope, as her father just had a heart attack, and is going through his second set of stents. My father also had a heart attack, but went through open heart surgery (triple bypass). I was under the impression that if you need open heart surgery, it's much more serious. If you could give me a link to where you got your information, it would be most appreciated.
Public Comments
- Of course open heart surgery is more serious,my dad passed from complications of that last year.
- Yeah I believe open heart is more serious. I had a roommate have this at 28! This after 2 attempts at stent - his was congenital I think and maybe even part lifestyle. He changed his lifestyle and lost weight - of course the surgery will make him lose weight a bit too.
- With a stent, it's installed via a small balloon placed in the artery to widen it. With open heart surgery, they have to physically stop the heart by opening the chest cavity and filling it with ice after hooking the patient up to a heart and lung machine. Open Heart Surgery is much more risky due to the fact that the Heart and Lung machine could malfunction, the blood could become tainted (With plastic residue, cleaning chemicals, a leak in the machine, etc etc etc), and the heart has to be physically stopped and necessitated. Stents allow the heart to continually beat (Although it may be slowed by drugs), without the assistance of a heart and lung machine, and the heart isn't stopped.
- Open heart surgery is a major procedure. A second set of stents compared to an open heart surgery is not that bad. I've come across patients who were admitted for a 7th (seventh) set of stents and lived. I'm sorry I cannot be more helpful, but Google isn't showing up anything that directly compares the "seriousness" of stents vs a triple bypass. My fiance consoles me by informing me about all kinds of things, depending on what it is I need to be consoled about. In your case, you can tell your girlfriend that, in this day & age, doctors can remove brain tumors and even perform heart transplants. To add to that, her father will have a very awesome anesthesiologist by his side (and trust me, if you are a VERY sick person, the first kind of doctor you would want by your side is an anesthesiologist because anesthesiologists are critical care specialists and they specialize in keeping patients alive). Good luck!
- To be honest, either procedure is complicated, but open heart takes much more time to recover.The difference between needing the surgery and needing the stent is where the blockage is and how severe it is. I am an open heart recovery nurse. I take care of both types of patients. Patients with stents usually have a two to three day stay in the hospital versus the open heart patient who will generally stay 5 days or so. Surgery involves cracking open the sternum and stopping the heart by packing the chest full of ice. This way the surgeon can work on the vessels that need to be fixed without the heart beating. Stents are placed while the patient is awake and the heart is beating. Big difference. So, to answer your question.....I think that definitely the surgery is more risky. There is a much greater chance of infection and complication with surgery versus the stents. Good luck and God bless.
- Either is risky, but i would say that between the two, i would prefer stents rather than open heart surgery any day if i had to choose between the two. My husband had to have his heart removed when he had a heart transplant and we were warned it was the worst type of surgery there is, as there is no guarantee that they could get the new heart to work right, if at all. That was the worst 6 hrs of my life waiting outside the theatres, but luckily he was fine and the doctors worked their magic and made my husband fit again, it is amazing to see the change in him, from being 27 and bed bound and couldnt even hold his baby daughter without getting breathless, to a 30 yr old man who can take his kids in the park and run round playing football with them! It was a risky operation, but one worth every risk and i am glad he decided to go ahead and beat the illness! Good luck to you and i hope that everything works out well! Doctors now can do many things and dont ever lose hope, you need to believe and be strong for each other. x
- As others have noted, open heart surgery is a much more serious procedure than angioplasty (stents). However, I am hot sure if that is what you are asking. If you are asking if open heart surgery means the disease is more serious, the answer is "sometimes, but not always." Sometimes, when the heart disease is more serious, angioplasty is not a viable alternative. However, there for some people either angioplasty or open heart surgery is appropriate. The decision may not be based on the severity of the disease. There was a recent news release comparing angioplasty and open heart surgery. You can read the AP summary of the study at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-cGd49k2fuTonngZZ9KCow022qgD92TTMF80
