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Can Coronary Artery Blockage be Reversed?

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Synopsis

  • No intravenous injection can able to dissolve or completely disintegrate the block in the coronary artery.
  • Taking statin medication for 2 years can reduce block size,but not completely remove it.(7% regression in 2 Years)
  • If the clot is disturbed it results in dangerous conditions called thrombus, which block other areas of coronary artery results in heart attack.

It is a common question asked by many patients. The coronary blockage is identified either by a CT angiogram or coronary angiogram. Also, many patients want to remove the block or to dissolve the block. And some patients have been already offered by some physicians that through injection with some chemicals they can able to dissolve or completely disintegrate the clot and remove it. 

The truth is we can able to arrest the progression of your blockage in the sense there is medical management which we can put you on so that your block might not progress but there is nothing we can do to completely reverse the blocks. The only thing that study which has shown is that we can able to reverse it. It is called an asteroid trial in that you take the cholesterol medication for your blocks. We call it as taking statin taken continuously for two years at the dosage of around 40mg. Statin drug has been used in this trial we have shown there is around 7% of regression in 2years that is the maximum which can achieve by medicine by reducing the block size and there is no treatment can actually completely remove the blockage.  

In fact, most of the cardiac treatment we are providing is what we call as plagues stabilization. So we put you on a statin so that your block remains there as stable without breaking. Once the clot breaks it is a very dangerous situation we call as thrombus formation and cause a heart attack. The fact is somebody offers you they can able to dissolve and disintegrate the block it cannot happen and even if they successfully did that actually they are converting you from a stable patient into an unstable patient. Once the blocked is disturbed then what happens is the thrombus or clot is formed and it's unstable and can get dislodge, then it moves through to your coronary artery and gets blocked. It causes a heart attack. 

So what patient should understand is there is no magic remedy to reduce your block or dissolve your block and we can able to make is stabilize your heart and make your block does not grow any further and don't break.