Looking back in the past, patients with acute myocardial infarction (Heart Attack) were only given supportive care, resulting in a mortality rate of up to 30%. Until 1961, treatment began to change with the establishment of the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) to closely and promptly care for patients, reducing the mortality rate to 15%. A few years later, treatment with specific thrombolytic drugs (Fibrinolytic therapy) began, further reducing the mortality rate to only 7-8%.
Reducing Losses with Science
Continuous advancements in medical science have led to various treatments for coronary artery disease, evolving from the use of balloons alone to the use of stents, drug-eluting stents, and others. This has increased treatment success, reduced complications, and effectively lowered the rate of disease recurrence.
These treatments are not only used for acute myocardial infarction (Heart Attack) but balloon angioplasty and stenting can also treat other patient groups, such as those with severe coronary artery stenosis but not yet occluded, stenosis in other organs like the brain or limbs, helping patients improve their health and live a life closer to normal.
In summary, current treatment for coronary artery stenosis, especially in patients with severe stenosis, follows the standard of balloon angioplasty and drug-eluting stent placement.
Integrating Innovation to Enhance Treatment Efficiency
Phyathai 3 Hospital established its Heart Center in 2007 and has cared for many heart patients through cardiac catheterization and coronary artery angioplasty, gaining expertise and a commitment to continuously improve treatment effectiveness.
Recently, the Heart Center at Phyathai 3 Hospital installed the latest cardiac and vascular angiography X-ray system (Philips Azurion7 C12), which enhances the efficiency, accuracy, and safety of coronary artery disease diagnosis and treatment with outstanding features such as:
- Touch Screen Module allows physicians to control and operate the X-ray system via a bedside touch interface.
- Monitor ceiling suspension with FlexVision, a 58-inch high-resolution display that clearly shows images of coronary arteries, cerebral vessels, and general blood vessels, and can integrate smoothly with diagnostic tools from other medical devices.
- X-ray tube set equipped with the latest AzurionIQ processing system, providing sharp coronary artery images while minimizing radiation exposure to the lowest necessary level, enhancing safety for both patients and physicians.
- Dynamic Roadmap, an intelligent software for creating navigation maps of coronary arteries that move in real-time with the heartbeat during continuous X-ray imaging.
- 3D-Rotational Angiography (3D-RA) captures 3D coronary artery X-ray images in a single session, reducing the amount of contrast agent injected for patients.
- StentBooth, StentBooth Live software systems that enhance the clarity of stents used in treatment.
Greater Accuracy with IVUS and iFR-FFR
Intravascular Ultrasound: IVUS is a technology that provides direct imaging from inside the blood vessels (Intracoronary Imaging), allowing analysis of the causes of coronary artery stenosis, whether due to fibrosis, fat, or calcification. It also provides information on vessel size and plaque location, making the analysis more accurate than contrast injection alone, which only shows the degree of stenosis.
Another technology is direct blood flow measurement (Physiologic Imaging) to measure blood pressure in coronary arteries using medication (Fractional Flow Reserve: FFR) and software to measure blood pressure without medication (Instantaneous Wave Free Ratio: iFR), which improves the accuracy of ischemic heart disease diagnosis.
Research reports show that coronary artery disease diagnosis and treatment by contrast injection, when supplemented with IVUS or FFR analysis, results in significantly better outcomes. Currently, it is recommended to use IVUS or FFR to assess coronary artery stenosis before considering angioplasty in many cases, such as stenosis at the coronary artery ostium, multiple stenotic lesions, or suspected heavy calcification.
Heart Center, Phyathai 3 Hospital
