Question Title: Not a candidate f or surgery

My mother is a 75 year old woman with chrinic vascular diseaese,hypertension (under control with meds) and high Cholesterol (under control). She had bypass surgery 6 years ago and that surgery is still ok,but she had another bypass this year and those are already closed. Due to her vascular problems they had problems finding accepatble veins to use and did the best they could. She now has been having angina and chest pains(due to the closed off arteries they belive). Since surgey is not an option she is being treated with drugs with keave her extreemly tired. What percentage of coronary heart patienst are "not candidates for surgery" and what is success of drug treatment? The drs offfered no encoragement which was very disturbing. She is now home and doing ok but very fatigued and of course worried? Tahnk you for your hekp It is appreciated.

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Dear ckm,

It's hard to say exactly what percentage of patients are not surgical candidates. Much of it depends on what the risk of dying or having a bad outcome with the surgery is. This number increases with each redo surgery and by the 3rd redo is probably in the neighborhood of 15 to 30%. Some of it depends on the expertise of the surgeon. We do a higher number of surgeries here in patients who have been turned down elsewhere but there are still patients that we are unable to offer any surgical intervention. The bottom line is that the benefits of surgery must outweigh the risks before a doctor would recommend surgery.

I hope you find this information useful. Information provided in the heart forum is for general purposes only. Only your physician can provide specific diagnoses and therapies. Please feel free to write back with additional questions.

If you would like to make an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center, please call 1-800-CCF-CARE or inquire online by using the Heart Center website at www.ccf.org/heartcenter. The Heart Center website contains a directory of the cardiology staff that can be used to select the physician best suited to address your cardiac problem.

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