Memorial Offers Almost Every Cardiovascular Procedure You Might Need, Including Many of the Most Advanced Procedures Available Today

Do you live in Colorado Springs? If so, you won't have to go far to access the most advanced cardiovascular procedures available today.

At Memorial Health System, we offer a comprehensive range of cardiovascular procedures, including angioplasty, atrial fibrillation ablation, and valve repair and replacement.

Which means you have access to the most advanced medicines, technology, and surgical procedures all in one convenient location. You never have to shuffle between hospitals or clinics.

What Will Your Treatment Look Like?

Heart disease and abnormalities are treated in several ways depending on your medical condition and type of problem. Common treatments involve the use of stents or catheters in obstructed arteries and blood vessels. Other treatments include valve replacement and open-chest surgery.

If you have been diagnosed with a heart condition or cardiovascular disease, it is important for you to know that you play an important role in the treatment process. Offering input, asking questions and expressing your concerns about treatment can help make your treatment a better experience.

Everything But Heart Transplant

Memorial Health System Heart & Vascular Center is equipped to handle almost any heart or vascular procedure that you may need. In fact, the only procedure not offered at Memorial is heart transplant.

What’s more, our heart surgeons perform nearly twice as many cardiovascular surgeries as any other hospital in southern Colorado. So while these procedures may sound complex, our cardiologists are intimately familiar with them.

So what procedures are offered?

Here is a partial list of the procedures offered by Memorial Health Systems:

• Coronary Artery Bypass—This procedure is sometimes called CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft), or “cabbage” for simplicity. In this procedure, a healthy artery or vein is used to bypass a clogged artery and restore blood flow to the heart. It is like a detour: the old “road” remains in place, while a new “road” is installed to go around the old one.
• Cardiac Catheterization—During this procedure, a catheter (tube) is inserted into a chamber or vessel of the heart. This is typically done by accessing a vessel in the groin, elbow, or neck area, then threading a guide wire to the area of the heart that requires intervention. Cardiac catheterization is often a precursor to other procedures, such as angioplasty.
• Angioplasty—If you have a blood vessel that is partially or totally obstructed, then you may be a candidate for an angioplasty. An angioplasty is a mechanical widening of an obstructed blood vessel. This widening is often achieved through the use of a stent, which is a narrow tube that is inserted into the blood vessel.
• Drug-Eluting Stent Utilization—Similar to angioplasty, a stent is placed into a partially or totally obstructed blood vessel, except in this case a drug-eluting stent (DES) is used instead of a bare-metal stent (BMS). The advantage of a drug-eluting stent is that it can prevent the growth of scar tissue, which might otherwise obstruct the stented blood vessel, a process called restenosis.
• Valve Repair & Replacement—Your heart has four valves that regulate blood flow in and out of your heart. If any of those valves aren’t functioning properly (called valve stenosis or insufficiency), you may need valve repair or replacement. Memorial offers these procedures, as well as other more complex valve procedures.
• Carotid Endarterectomy—This procedure treats carotid stenosis disease by removing the plaque from the lining of the carotid artery. This is a commonly performed vascular operation, especially when you have severe narrowing of your carotid arteries.
• Pericardiectomy—A pericardiectomy is a procedure that removes all or part of your pericardium, the membrane that surrounds your heart. This procedure is often used when you have constrictive pericarditis, which is a thickening of the pericardium that prevents the heart from fully expanding.
• Heart Tumor Removal—If you have a tumor on your heart, you may be a candidate for a surgical procedure that can remove the tumor and restore your heart to health.
• Open-Chest or Endovascular Surgery—Open-chest surgery involves making a large incision in the middle of your chest, usually to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm. A less invasive method is endovascular surgery, which attempts to repair the aorta by threading a graft through the leg. The graft then supports the weakened portion of the aorta to prevent rupture of the aneurysm.
• Minimally Invasive Ablation ("Mini-Maze")—Atrial fibrillation is a type of arrhythmia that can cause blood clots, which can then lead to stroke. The Mini-Maze procedure can potentially cure atrial fibrillation, and is an alternative to open-chest surgery. The Mini-Maze uses only three small incisions, and is performed on a beating heart, so recovery time is much faster than traditional Maze procedures.
• Cryoablation—Cryoablation is the process of restoring normal heart rhythm by freezing heart tissue that is disrupting normal electrical impulses and causing arrhythmia.
• Biventricular Pacemakers—In a normal person, both the left and right ventricle will beat together. But sometimes they get out of synch. As a result a person may feel fatigued, have shortness of breath, and be at greater risk of heart failure. A biventricular pacemaker resynchronizes the left and right ventricles so they beat together and restore normal blood flow to the body.
• Laser Lead Extraction—When a Pacemaker’s electrical lead goes bad, or scar tissue builds up around a lead, it may need to be removed. Laser lead extraction is an advanced technique that minimizes the risk of damage to the surrounding heart tissue, which can be a problem with traditional lead extraction surgery.

Of these many procedures, Memorial Health was the first hospital in Colorado Springs to begin using the following procedures:

• Angioplasty
• Cardiac Catheterization
• Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Therapy
• Drug-Eluting Stent Utilization
• Biventricular Pacemakers
• Cryoablation

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How to Get Help Now

If you have a cardiovascular condition, it is critical you get care as soon as possible.

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Learn More

To learn more about Memorial Heart & Vascular Center, please keep reading.

At Memorial, our mission is to provide the highest quality health care. Therefore, it's our job to do everything we can to help you make the right health care decision. This web site guides you through important steps that help you understand the healing process and the programs we have available at Memorial Health System Heart & Vascular Center.

The next web page introduces you to patients who received their heart and vascular care at Memorial.

» Step 4: Heart & vascular patient stories