What is a bifurcation blockage?
It is often useful to think of the heart arteries like a tree with branches. At the site where a side-branch vessel comes off of the main coronary artery, plaque and fatty build-up are more likely to develop because of forces related to changes in blood flow. Stenoses, or narrowing, located in a main coronary artery and an adjoining side-branch vessel is called a bifurcation blockage or bifurcation lesion. Bifurcation blockages are somewhat more challenging for cardiac interventionalists to treat than blockages that do not involve side-branch vessels, because current stents do not come in a “Y” configuration. Experienced interventionalists have developed a specialized approach to individualize patient treatment for these blockages, but the treatment procedure is sometimes technically demanding. To optimize results with current technology, our treatment approach for bifurcation blockages includes: Trying to avoid the use of more than one stent, if possible (except under certain situatio
