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The most common cause of disability and death among Georgians is heart disease, but its toll is decreasing.
According to a recent study in the journal American Family Physician, just 6 percent of Americans had coronary heart disease in 2010 compared to 6.7 percent in 2006. A separate recent study from The New England Journal of Medicine found that the number of heart attacks in the United States decreased between 1999 and 2008, and among those who had heart attacks during that period, the percentage of those who survived them increased.
Experts offer many explanations - better diets and lifestyle habits, improved screening and detection methods, better and more medications and, importantly, advances in surgical treatment for problems such as blocked coronary arteries, faulty heart valves and aneurysms at risk of rupture.
For many Georgians such procedures are becoming more accessible and a bit easier. Many procedures that once required opening the chest - which meant significant pain, hospitalization and a lengthy recovery - can now be done in less invasive ways that reduce pain, trauma and recovery time and in some cases make them feasible for patients who could not withstand more invasive surgery.
Here are six potentially life-saving procedures - some still experimental and some almost routine - available in Georgia now.
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
When plaque accumulates in arteries, over time that accumulation can restrict blood flow to the heart, leading to a heart attack. A coronary artery bypass graft allows surgeons to bypass the blocked portion(s) of an artery or arteries with grafts of blood vessels from other parts of the body, typically the leg.
While the procedure has become less common in recent years due to the advent of balloon angioplasty and the placement of stents (see below), for many it remains a life-saving treatment option. And for those who need it, new techniques, using small incisions and in some cases eliminating the need for a heart-lung machine - a pump that maintains the circulation during heart surgery by diverting blood from the heart, oxygenating it and pumping it through the body - are making the procedure a little easier for patients.
"About 10 to 15 percent of patients will qualify for a procedure called a beating heart...