Advances in Care

The primary advantage of cutting balloon angioplasty is that it makes angioplasty possible in vessels that are poorly suited for conventional angioplasty techniques, either because the vessel is too small, is forked or has been previously stented (held open with small supports). Cutting balloon angioplasty works by using tiny blades – they measure just one-hundredth of an inch – to score the plaque before the balloon flattens it against the interior artery walls. Scoring the plaque allows the balloon inflation to take place at a lower pressure because the shallow cuts force the plaque to break apart evenly.

Cutting balloon angioplasty is especially useful for patients with coronary stents who develop in-stent restenosis – a re-blockage of the artery due to scar tissue build-up in the stent. In the recent past, the best treatment available for such individuals was intracoronary radiation, a procedure that is still experimental, limited in availability and can only be performed on a patient once. Cutting balloon angioplasty offers a new alternative for restenosed stent patients.

Cutting balloon angioplasty is a variation on the balloon angioplasty treatment that has been available to patients in the U.S. for over 20 years. In traditional angioplasty, a small balloon is inserted into the patient’s blocked artery and is inflated at high pressure. This opens the blocked artery by causing the plaque to break up as the balloon pushes it into the artery wall.