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Heart Disease (Expert Forum)
restenosis
This forum is for questions and support regarding heart issues such as: Angina, Angioplasty, Arrhythmia, Bypass Surgery, Cardiomyopathy, Coronary Artery Disease, Defibrillator, Heart Attack, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Mitral Valve Prolapse, Pacemaker, PAD, Stenosis, Stress Tests.
restenosis
by melisa-bains, Feb 28, 1999 12:00AM
I am writing about restenosis. On Oct 6 I had 5 stents in the RCA. 2 months later I was having some pain between my shoulder blades. They did an EKG and thought it was restenosis so I had another angiogram and one of the stents was 70% closed. I then had # 6 stent put in the RCA. It is now a little over 2 months and again I am having the pain between my shoulder blades. I had an EKG and a stress test done 1 week ago and my doctor said this was the best EKG since the MI and the stress test looked good. My question is could it still be restenosis even though those tests looked good? Thank you
Doctor's Answer
by CCF Cardio MD - MTR, Feb 28, 1999 12:00AM
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Dear Melissa, thank you for your question. Restenosis is a difficult problem to deal with because short of doing another angiogram, clinical symptoms, ECG findings, and stress tests results are inexact in determining whether restenosis has occurred. However, it's not practical to repeat the angiogram each time someone who has had a stent develops chest pain. Thus, we often rely on non-invasive tests (ECG, stress test) to give a reasonable assurance that the stents are still open and functioning well. However, these tests are never 100% accurate for this purpose (as I previously mentioned). I can't determine whether you have restenosis within a stent, but if your physician is confident in the ECG and stress test findings, then you should follow his advice.
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. Good luck.
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.
