Vascular Disease Care
Interventional cardiovascular medicine involves opening blocked blood vessels with minimally invasive catheter procedures.
UC San Diego Health specialists regularly perform balloon angioplasty, atherectomy (removing plaque from a blood vessel) and stenting (inserting a mesh tube into a blood vessel) to treat vascular disease and prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Our board-certified vascular disease team includes imaging specialists, interventional cardiologists, vascular surgeons and endovascular specialists.
Why Choose Us?
- We have consistently low "door-to-balloon" times, or the time it takes for a lifesaving procedure during a severe heart attack. Our most recent average time of under 60 minutes beats the national benchmark of 90 minutes.
- As a STEMI receiving hospital, our paramedics can consult with us while transporting a patient directly to the cath lab.
- We perform the highest volume of catheterization procedures in the county, and our patient outcomes place us in the top 2 percent of cardiac cath labs in the country.
Conditions We Treat
Vascular diseases typically result from the hardening and narrowing of blood vessels and high blood pressure. We treat:
- Coronary artery disease
- Peripheral artery disease
- Aneurysm
- Carotid artery disease
- Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT)
- Stroke
- Deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism
- Chronic venous insufficiency
- Varicose veins
Procedures
- Coronary, renal and femoral angioplasty and stent placement
- Atherectomy
- Coronary artery stenting
- Carotid artery stenting