Question:
Someone told me that they had 22 stents. Is this possible or should they have had another procedure?
Answer:
Patients like this do much better with a Coronary Bypass Procedure, live longer and spend a lot less money!
I wish I could tell you it isn’t true, but from personal experience I can tell you I ultimately performed a coronary bypass procedure on someone who had undergone 31 stent procedures (he needed three bypasses, and did well). One of the problems I encountered was that there was so little space left in which to perform the bypasses – a coronary artery is only so long and each stent takes up about 1/2 ” or more; not much left to work on! There is no justification for multiple stents after the first few; it should have become obvious this was the wrong approach in both these patients.
Please read some more about this in this post: How long does a heart stent last? Do they need to be replaced?
Hope this helps,
Dr T