Changing lifestyles and food habits are increasing the chance of blockages in the arteries. Hypertension, eating a high fat food, smoking, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are considered as the main causes of artery blockages. A person feels pain or discomfort when his heart will not receive the blood supply it needs to work properly. He will also experience restlessness, breathlessness, fatigue and nausea. This can be because of hardening and narrowing of coronary arteries. To lessen symptoms such as pain and to improve a person’s quality of life doctors suggest treatments like angioplasty. This treatment helps to widen the coronary arteries of the heart that have been narrowed or blocked by plaque buildup or a blood clot.Today cardiologists suggest angioplasty to patients for removing plaques from coronary arteries, emergency relief from a heart attack that is in progress, and in widening narrowed arteries in the limbs, such as the femoral or iliac artery of the leg. This procedure also helps in alleviating chest pain that developed by contraction of coronary arteries. Cardiologists select different types of angioplasty technique for different ailments based on information like where the narrowing is, how it is shaped, and whether it is made of hard or soft plaque.

By performing this keyhole surgery, damaged or diseased blood vessels are repaired using a catheter and a balloon and this will open up blocked arteries in the heart. Different types of angioplasty techniques practiced today are balloon angioplasty, laser angioplasty, atherectomy angioplasty and coronary stenting.In balloon angioplasty a thin tube, or catheter, is passed into an artery by making a cut in the upper leg or the arm. A balloon on the tip of the catheter will be inflated and this will push the plaque on the wall ofthe artery, thus widening the artery.

In some cases, cardiologists place a small and expandable metal device called a stent in the artery after the angioplasty procedure is complete. Stents will keep the arteryfrom closing again, thereby allowing a free flow of blood to the heart muscles. Laser angioplasty is similar to balloon angioplasty, but the only difference is instead of balloon this technique will use a laser at the tip of the catheter.