Heart Center of Excellence

Emergency, interventional and diagnostic cardiovascular procedures are available in our Heart Center of Excellence.   

Whether you come to us through the emergency room, or due to your doctor’s recommendation for a diagnostic cardiac catheterization, Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital provides leading edge cardiovascular treatments and procedures.  Both emergency and interventional procedures involve non-surgical treatments that open narrowed arteries to improve or restore blood flow to the heart. 

Digital Echocardiography:  The Helen Ellis Heart Center recently upgraded its echocardiography services with the purchase of a GE Vivid S6 Echocardiogram instrument. The new echo testing instrument is designed with advanced digital capabilities. Echocardiography is used to diagnose cardiovascular diseases. In fact, it is one of the most widely used diagnostic tests for heart disease. It can provide a wealth of helpful information, including the size and shape of the heart, its pumping capacity and the location and extent of any damage to its tissues. It is especially useful for assessing diseases of the heart valves. It also can detect abnormalities in the pattern of blood flow, such as the backward flow of blood through partly closed heart valves, known as regurgitation. By assessing the motion of the heart wall, echocardiography can help detect the presence and assess the severity of coronary artery disease, as well as help determine whether any chest pain is related to heart disease. Echocardiography can also help detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The biggest advantage to echocardiography is that it is noninvasive (doesn't involve breaking the skin or entering body cavities) and has no known risks or side effects.

  State-of-the-art equipment is expertly guided by our Board-Certified cardiologists  in the following interventional procedures: 

Balloon-Angioplasty (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention): A small balloon at the tip of a catheter is inserted near the blocked or narrowed area of the coronary artery. The balloon is then inflated, which compresses the fatty plaque blockage against the walls and widens the blood vessel to improve the heart’s blood flow.
 
Balloon-Angioplasty (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention) with Stenting:  Often a balloon-angioplasty is performed in combination with the insertion of a stent, which is a small metal tube that acts as a scaffold to provide support inside the artery.  A balloon catheter, placed over a guide wire, is used to insert the stent into the narrowed artery, which then expands to the size of the artery to hold it open.  The balloon is deflated and removed, but the stent remains in place permanently.  After several weeks, the artery heals around the stent.
 
Carotid Stenting:As people age, plaque can build up inside the carotid arteries that bring oxygenated blood from the heart through the neck to each side of the head. Over time, these plaques collect on arterial walls as cholesterol circulates in the blood. As the plaques enlarge, the arteries become narrow and stiff, a process called atherosclerosis or ‘hardening of the arteries.’ Carotid stenting is a new treatment that re-establishes blood flow in blocked carotid arteries through the placement of a tiny, slender metal-mesh tube inside a carotid artery to increase the flow of blood blocked by plaques. The stent is inserted via angioplasty, in which the physician guides a balloon-tipped catheter into the blocked artery. The balloon is inflated and presses against the plaque, flattening it and re-opening the artery. The stent acts as scaffolding to prevent the artery from collapsing or being closed by plaque after the procedure is completed.
 
Drug-Eluting Stents: These stents contain a medication that is actively released at the stent implantation site to help reduce the risk of restenosis, which is the narrowing of the artery wall after treatment due to inflammation.  Some concern was raised in 2006 regarding the safety of drug-eluting stents, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains that they are safe and effective when used properly.   Following this procedure, your doctor will prescribe medications for several months to help prevent the risk of clotting in the stent.
 
Rotablation (Percutaneous Transluminal Rotational Atherectomy or PTRA): In this procedure, a special catheter with an acorn-shaped, diamond-coated tip is guide to the point of narrowing in the artery.  As the tip spins at a high speed, it grinds away the plaque on the artery’s walls.  The microscopic plaque is then safely washed into the blood stream where it is filtered out by your liver and spleen.

For more information about these procedures, or to get a referral to one of the Cardiologists on staff at Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital, please call (727) 943-3600 or 1-877-482-4362.