Recently, 93 year old Former US President Ford underwent Angioplasty with stenting to two of his coronary arteries which supply blood to the heart. Most of the media carried reported that Ford had a surgery. Can one really call angioplasty as surgery?

People with significant blocks in coronary atreries generally need one of two treatments - bypass surgery or angiplasty. Bypass surgery is a surgical procedure that involves oening up the chest.

However, angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that involves passing a catheter through an artery in the leg or arm. Through the catheter, a thin metal wire is passed across the block in the coronary artery. A special balloon is tracked along the wire, placed at the level of the block and carefully inflated at the site to relieve the narrowing. Actually this balloon inflation is called balloon angioplasty. After this, generally a metallic mesh like stent os placed to keep the artery open.

As angioplasty does not involve cutting open or any surgical wounds, I would not call it a surgery. It may just be a matter of semantics.