Need info on laser angioplasty

Posted By bren on March 03, 1999 at 13:56:43:







My father is 75 yrs old. He has had 9 bypasses, numberous balloon angioplasties, 2 stents, and 6 weeks of EECP treatments.  He has responded great to all treatments, but the effects of each treatment have become shorter and shorter.  His latest EECP treatment gave him wonderful benefits, but it only lasted 6 months.  His anginas have returned and are severe.  He sounds incapacitated  by the description above, but he mows his lawn and is fairly active.  He has almost a total blockage in a bend in an artery beyond a stent.  His doctor could not get a balloon angioplasty through and the "roto" thing (can't remember the medical term for it) would not shave anything off because the blockage has calcified.  They are now talking about doing a laser angioplasty on him.  They indicated that his other bypasses look good and this is his main area of trouble.  I would appreciate any information on this procedure you could give me.  He will probably have in done in a couple of days (he currently has the max amount of dye in his system from the previous attempts yesterday).  It is hard to find out anything about this procedure.  Any info at all would be appreciated!  Thank you!