PTCA : Where does it fit in our scheme o ‘ things today?

Abstract

The first PTCA was performed in Pakistan by this writer a decade ago, only five years after the first PTCA in the world was performed by Grunting. Since then, there has been an explosion in the number of PTCA’s being performed all over the world in particular in the USA. In Pakistan, PTCA’s are being performed in small numbers, hardly making a meaningful contribution to our efforts to contain the rising tide of coronary heart disease. Why are we lagging behind in this area? The reasons are many.With the rest enosis issue still looming large particularly in multi vessel PTCA’s, this slow start may not be such a bad thing after all!PTCA has created a small but important niche for itself in our present scheme of managing the rising tide of ischemic heart disease.