Newly approved medical technology offered at Atrium Health has helped a local man get back on his feet after a stent in his artery was blocked by scar tissue.
Stan Ciepcielinski is grateful for time with his grandkids, which is something he didn’t think he would be alive to see 10 years ago. “Back then I had three grandchildren,” he told Channel 9. “Now, I have eight, and I get to enjoy them all the time now.”
Things went wrong when he was hiking the Great Wall of China during a business trip.
“I got up on the wall and couldn’t breathe,” Ciepcielinski said. And the chest pains didn’t go away even after he got home. He went to Atrium Health and after many tests, doctors told him he had congestive heart failure. “They just said, ‘You need a new heart,’” he said. “It was totally a surprise. I thought they were going to give me some more medication.”
Ciepcielinski was lucky enough to receive a new heart eight days after he was put on the transplant list. He gets evaluated every two years, and in June, a stent in his artery was blocked by scar tissue. The narrowing of the artery slowed blood flow to and from his heart in a condition known as in-stent restenosis.
Dr. Nyal Borges at Atrium Health said in-stent restenosis is common with stent patients and now there’s an easy treatment. “We have a big opportunity to help a lot of patients,” Borges said.
The FDA approved new technology this summer that is offered at Atrium Health. It uses a medicated balloon that coats stents.
“It actually chemically changes what is happening in the artery, prevents scar tissue from forming and the chemicals that are produced to heal that scar are no longer made,” the doctor said.
Ciepcielinski said he was home the same afternoon as the procedure and back to normal after two days. He’s back to running marathons and spending quality time with his eight grandkids. “It’s just a huge step forward and it’s so exciting, he said. “Especially for people like me … I needed this technology to keep me alive.”
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