More than 450,000 Americans will suffer fatal heart attacks this year – most within an hour of experiencing their first symptoms. When it comes to treating heart attacks, Princeton Medical Center (PMC) is on-call around the clock to provide emergency coronary angioplasty – a critical lifesaving procedure – conveniently close to home.
Our program uses state-of-the-art technology to locate and open blocked vessels and restore blood flow to the heart. At PMC, treatment is provided by a special team of board certified interventional cardiologists and nurses.
Emergency coronary angioplasty is a procedure to open clogged arteries in response to a heart attack. Performed by PMC’s interventional cardiologists, emergency coronary angioplasty quickly increases the flow of blood and oxygen through blocked arteries without the need for invasive heart surgery.
The potentially life-saving procedure is performed by making a small incision in the groin area and guiding a catheter and an inflatable balloon catheter that is positioned to the affected artery. A stent, or mesh tube, is usually inserted to keep the opening intact. By quickly locating and treating the site of the blockage, emergency coronary angioplasty reduces the damage to heart muscle and helps the heart function better in the future.
Timing is critical, and reducing the time between patients' arrival in PMC's Center for Emergency Care and the emergency coronary angioplasty procedure ("door-to-balloon" times) can have dramatic effects on patient outcomes. With the LIFENET Cardiac Care System, which transmits EKG data to Emergency Department physicians and staff while patients are in transit to the hospital, our board certified emergency physicians and interventional cardiologists are prepared to initiate this critical, lifesaving service even more promptly.
The American Heart Association reports that the need for emergency bypass surgery drops 10-fold following emergency coronary angioplasty. But, if open heart surgery is necessary, PMC has an emergency transport team on site to immediately transfer patients to either University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia, or Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, depending upon what is determined to be in the best interests of the patient.