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Question

My father has recently been diagnosed with angina, and is to have open-heart-surgery. Please can I have some information about angina and the surgery?

Answer

Angina is the medical term for the chest pain that occurs when the heart muscle doesn't get enough oxygen. This happens when the blood vessels providing the heart muscle with blood and oxygen are blocked due to atherosclerosis.

Risk factors predisposing towards this are smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Angina is only a symptom telling us that there is a blockage, and that something must be done. Sometimes medication alone is sufficient, but if the arteries are blocked almost totally, surgery is necessary.

The chest is opened, and the diseased blood vessels are replaced with healthy vessels. They use the big veins in the lower legs of the patient, and transplant them onto the heart, connecting them to the open parts of the heart's blood vessels.

The patient usually spends a day or two in intensive care, and is then transferred to a normal ward. It is a relatively common procedure nowadays yielding very good results.

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