Venous Thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism causes substantial disability and death. The incidence of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is about 1 per 1000 person years. The most serious and potentially preventable complication, pulmonary embolus, kills an estimated 50,000 Americans each  year. Venous stasis secondary to chronic valvular incompetence, of- ten a consequence of venous thrombosis, causes varying degrees of pain, edema, and ulceration....

Read More

What Are Stents?

Excerpted from “ Stent,” by the National Heart, Lung, andBlood Institute (NHLBI, www.nhlbi.nih.gov), part of the NationalInstitutes of Health, July 2009. A stent could be a tiny mesh tube that’s used to treat narrowed or weakened arteries within the body. Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood off from your heart to different components of your body. you will have a stent placed in an artery as a part of a procedure referred to as angioplasty....

Read More

Overview of Heart Surgery

Excerpted from “Heart Surgery,” by the National Heart,Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI, www.nhlbi.nih.gov), part of the National Institutes of Health, September 2007. Heart surgery is done to correct problems with the heart. More than half a million heart surgeries are done each year in the United States for a variety of heart problems. Heart surgery is used to correct heart problems in children and adults. This text...

Read More