Improve symptoms of coronary artery disease such as angina and shortness of breath.
	Reduce damage to the heart muscle from a heart attack.
	Reduce the risk of death in some patients.

Angioplasty is done on more than 1 million people a year in the United States. Research on angioplasty is ongoing to make it safer and more effective, to prevent treated arteries from closing again, and to make the procedure an option for more people.

Unless an artery is too small, doctors usually place a stent in the treated portion of the artery during angioplasty. The stent supports the inner artery wall and reduces the chance of the artery closing up again. A stent also can keep an artery open that was torn or injured during angioplasty.

When stents are placed in coronary arteries, there’s a 1 in 5 chance that the arteries will close in the first 6 months after angioplasty. When stents aren’t used, the risk of the arteries closing can be twice as high.

Both the right and left sides of your neck have blood vessels called carotid arteries that carry blood from the heart to the brain. Carotid arteries can become narrowed by plaque.   Stents help keep the carotid arteries fully open after they’re widened with angioplasty.

Openings between the heart’s upper chambers normally close soon after birth.  When they don’t they can now be corrected with less invasive methods than traditional surgery.

Using a catheter in a laboratory setting, small mesh implants are inserted that close the opening.  The procedures involve less anesthesia than traditional surgery, there is no major incision and the patient can normally go home 1 to 2 days afterward.

Narrowing of the renal arteries by atherosclerosis or other reasons is an important cause of hypertension and kidney failure. While traditional surgical methods are sometimes used to treat this condition, a newer, less invasive procedure called renal artery stenting has become the most common treatment.  Renal artery stenting is done by threading a tiny, balloon-tipped catheter through the groin to the site of the arterial narrowing. The balloon is expanded to enlarge the artery and a stent is put in place to optimize the angioplasty result and minimize recurrences.

Most people with PAD can be treated with lifestyle changes, medications or both.  In a minority of patients angioplasty or surgery may be necessary.

Angioplasty is a non-surgical procedure that can be used to dilate (widen) narrowed or blocked peripheral arteries. A thin tube called a catheter with a deflated balloon on its tip is passed into the narrowed artery segment. Then the balloon is deflated and the catheter is withdrawn. Often a stent — a cylindrical, wire mesh tube — is placed in the narrowed artery with a catheter. There the stent expands and locks open. It stays in that spot, keeping the diseased artery open.

If the narrowing involves a long portion of an artery, surgery may be necessary. A vein from another part of the body or a synthetic blood vessel is used. It's attached above and below the blocked area to detour blood around the blocked spot.