Heart Attack Emergency Treatment in Corbin, Kentucky

Baptist Health Corbin: Heart Attack Emergency Treatment

If you experience sudden chest pains, it is critical you take immediate action and seek treatment. Learn more about heart attack emergency treatment options.

Heart Attack Emergency Treatment in Corbin, Kentucky HealthTalks Transcript

Prem Subramaniyam, MD, Interventional Cardiology
Heart attack remains the number one killer here in the United States and across the world. When you experience sudden chest pain, which may very well be due to a major heart attack, it is always important for you to call 911. When EMS gets an EKG in the ambulance, the EKG gets transmitted to the whole team. By the time the patient presents at the hospital, everybody is ready to take the patient to the procedure room to try to open up that artery within 60 minutes.

When patients present with a major heart attack, it’s usually due to one of the major arteries of their heart being completely blocked. The best treatment to open up that artery is by using balloons and stents. A stent is, essentially, a metal mesh tube that your heart doctor will insert into your heart arteries once he opens up that blockage. The stent will keep the artery widely open for a longer period of time.

Sometimes patients present to the hospital with chest pain, and they might have a minor heart attack that we usually diagnose with a blood test. Still, doing a procedure called a coronary angiogram to identify the blockage and open up the blockage with balloons and stents remains the treatment of choice, even for minor heart attacks.

Here at Baptist Health Corbin, we have a fully functional cardiac cath lab where we have a team of people who are on call 24/7. When patients present with heart attack, time is of the essence. The earlier we open up that blocked artery for you, the better your long-term survival and prognosis.