Stents - What to Expect When Getting a Stent - What to Expect When Getting a Stent

The procedures to place a stent to treat coronary and carotid arteries are similar. In both procedures, a thin tube with a deflated balloon on the end is threaded through a blood vessel to the narrowed or blocked artery. Once in place, the balloon is inflated and the stent is opened and placed in the artery.

• The procedure to place a coronary stent is called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), commonly known as coronary angioplasty . Sometimes the procedure is done in an emergency, such as during a heart attack. The stent provides support to the artery after the artery is re-opened.
• The procedure to place a stent in the carotid artery is called carotid artery stenting. This is a minimally invasive treatment for severe carotid artery disease.

After an incision is made in your upper thigh, your doctor will insert a stent graft through a large blood vessel using a catheter. Your doctor will guide the catheter and stent graft through the arteries to the aorta, where the aneurysm is located. The stent graft is opened up and placed in the aorta once it is in the right place.

Dye may be injected into the blood after the stent graft is placed to make sure the stent graft is working correctly and blood is not leaking into the aneurysm. The dye can be seen by X-ray.

An airway stent is placed using a bronchoscope, a small camera on the end of a long tube. The doctor will slide the bronchoscope through your nose or mouth and then down through your throat into the trachea and the airways.

The stent will be placed by sliding a guide wire along the side of the bronchoscope, then sliding a thin tube along the guide wire that carries the stent. Using the bronchoscope to watch, the doctors will open the stent in the narrowed airway. Fluoroscopy, a type of X-ray imaging, or ultrasound may also be used to help guide the stent placement. Afterward, the doctors may check your lungs by chest X-ray.

• Return to Who Needs It? to learn about the conditions that these devices treat.
• Return to Before Getting a Stent to learn how to prepare for surgery.