Surgeons at Baptist Health offer a broad range of surgical procedures to patients suffering from vascular problems, such as:

• Traditional surgical repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms to prevent them from rupturing;
• Carotid endarterectomy, an operation to remove plaque from the carotid arteries, restore blood flow to the brain and prevent stroke;
• Surgical repair of blockages in the arteries of the legs, including by pass procedures where a synthetic graft is stitched around the blockage; endarterectomy, where plaque is removed from the artery to restore blood flow; and angioplasty, to open a blocked artery by inflating a small balloon inside it and squeezing the plaque against the artery wall;
• Thrombectomy/embolectomy to remove a blood clot from an artery using a special catheter; and
• Vein stripping to remove varicose veins.

In addition to traditional operations for vascular problems, surgeons at Baptist Health also offer new minimally-invasive endovascular procedures. These procedures repair diseased arteries from the inside, rather than the outside, using tiny metal cylinders called stents. Minimally-invasive procedures do not require large surgical incisions, allowing patients to recover much more quickly and return to their normal activities in a matter of days rather than weeks.

Endovascular surgeries are performed in a special operating room equipped with digital fluoroscopy and intravascular ultrasound. This equipment allows surgeons to view the patient's vascular system on TV monitors during procedures. Endovascular procedures available to treat vascular patients at Baptist Health include:

• Stent-graft repair for abdominal aortic aneurysms, and
• Stent-graft repair of blocked arteries in the legs, where angioplasty is used to open the blockage and then an intravascular stent is placed in the artery to permanently hold it open.