NCH offers new process to improve blood flow

Getting a stent to improve blood flow to the heart is a very common procedure. In some cases, the issue comes back as scar tissue forms around the stent.

That could fuel the need for another stent. To avoid that, NCH’s Rooney Heart Institute is the first in Florida to offer a new solution.

When Richard Parent had stent surgery to open the arteries leading to his heart, he thought his troubles were over. He was wrong.

“I felt very tired, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. It was very difficult,” Parent said.

It’s something interventional cardiologist Adam Frank has seen before.

“Those stents can re-narrow. They can re-narrow because of scar tissue formation or with plaque. When the stents re-narrow with scar tissue, we call that in-stent restenosis,” Frank said.

Parent’s symptoms returned two months after surgery.

He said that in the past year, he’s had four procedures.

“They finally gave up, and because the scarring issue was just predominantly taking over my artery,” Parent said.

For people like him, the last course of action was often a bypass operation to circumvent the blockage altogether. Dr. Frank offered a different option. Boston Scientific made the new ‘agent’ drug-coated balloon.

“The drug-coated balloon just leaves a layer of this medication behind, and over time, as long as you open that vessel, well, the likelihood of more scar tissue forming is much, much less,” Frank said.

First, the scar tissue is pushed aside, and then the balloon is inflated like a typical angioplasty balloon. The drug slows the progression of new growth. NCH is the first in Florida to use it.

“It’s fantastic to be on the cutting edge of this technology,” Frank said.

Now, Parent feels the benefit.

“Almost immediately. It was like night and day,” he said.

About one in four people who get a stent will have some degree of re-narrowing. Drug-coated stents have been around for years now. They cut down on some of the scar tissue formation, but not all.