It took only five minutes to diagnose Jennifer, and as soon as it was over, Dr. Yi made a call to the head of cardiology, Dr. Qu Peng. To say that Jennifer’s case was severe is to put it mildly. Her left descending artery was 99 percent blocked, and her left circumflex artery was totally occluded. The doctors told her she’d have to have surgery right away.
“In China?” she protested. She wanted to consider other options, including going to a Western hospital.
Dr. Qu Peng wouldn’t hear it. “You shouldn’t be walking around,” he told her, so flying would be even more dangerous. Faced with this news, Jennifer relented. She went home, packed things for her stay at the hospital, and returned the next day. What else could she do?
But she was about to receive some of the most advanced care in the world.
“When I was a young doctor,” said, China “didn’t have many procedures for cardiovascular problems. Since ’99, treatments and techniques have progressed very fast. Equipment has become advanced.”
According to Dr. Qu Peng, rheumatic heart disease was more common in China twenty to thirty years ago, when the standard of life was lower and malnutrition, infections from the streptococcus bacterium and tonsillitis were more prevalent. But the type of heart disease has changed. With the opening up and modernization of China, there’s more pressure on people as their jobs change. Stress, diet, smoking, and pollution have contributed to the rise in cases of coronary heart disease.
With bypass surgery, developed countries already had a way to treat coronary heart disease. The procedure was easy, popular and highly successful. In developing countries, however, the technology it required was too advanced, and the rate of success was too low, so doctors had to find a new way.
What they found was percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a minimally invasive form of microsurgery. A catheter the thickness of a human hair is pushed through the radial artery, leaving only the smallest circle of a scar on the wrist. On the end of the catheter are tiny instruments used to clear away plaque. A balloon is then inflated to 250 atmospheres of pressure to make room for a stent, a small support that keeps the blood vessel open. The stent, imported from America or Europe, is made out of chromium and titanium, on top of which is a drug that prevents infection. Jennifer’s case was so extreme that she required five such stents, two of them for reinforcement.
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