Heart Attack Patients

Hopefully, you will never be wheeled into an emergency room with chest pain (or other symptoms) and a heart attack. It’s a common event, however, and primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), the procedure in which a balloon is used to open the blocked coronary artery, is better than thrombolytic therapy, a treatment in which a “clot busting” drug hopefully opens the artery. If the hospital does not have PCI capability, the patient can be transported to a hospital which does. PCI should be performed AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, because the longer the artery is blocked, the larger the volume of heart muscle which is lost.