Conversation: The conversation between human and AI assistant.
[|Human|] I am 58 yr old female, smoked almost 40 yrs. Last June I had a heart attack had 3 stents inserted. I did quit smoking. A friend died within 2 years of his heart attack and stent placement. This has me nervous. Is there any data on an average lifespan of patients after stents inserted. I stopped smoking, take all meds, try to exercise when i can, but there is a lot of stress in my life. What can I expect?
[|AI|]  Dear, The story goes on like this :1- the heart coronary arteries gets narrowed by many factors including smoking, hypertension and increased cholesterol level .2- the blood flow to the heart muscle decreases, so it can't do its job perfectly.3- the patient experiences an anginal pain (chest pain) on exercise or at rest due to ischemia (low blood flow).4- the patient goes to the Emergency department and discovers one of two : 4a - the heart is still 100% functioning but Ischemic (no cardiac cell injury) 4b - the heart has cell injury (Myocardial Infarction) and below 100% functioning .5 - after investigations, the patient performs catheterization, and does one of three : 5a - has to put one stent or more to widen a narrow coronary so increase the blood flow to the heart.  5b - the narrowed coronary arteries can't be widen by stents so he/she has to do open-heart surgery to replace them (CABG) 5c - the patient cant stand stents or CABG so he/she will go on medical treatment life long. N.B. : any procedure of the above depends on how the heart performs its job, and it is defined by Echocardiography .this sequence to show you that, if you have a stent or more, so you still have the chance to do CABG later on if one of these stents has complications. Concerning the lifespan, 1- lifespan of stents varies from 5-10 years according the type of the stent .2- lifespan of patents with CABG varies from 5-17 years according to the type of CABG (venous graft or arterial graft) considered no other complications. So, 7 years for a stent + 10 years for CABG = 17 years lifespan (average) considered a perfect heart with good systolic and diastolic function (each per age) . I wish that I gave you the point ... Thanks for asking.