Like every other organ or tissue in your body, the heart muscle needs oxygen-rich blood to survive. The heart gets this blood from the coronary arteries. But in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), the coronary arteries are clogged and diseased and can no longer deliver enough blood to the heart. The heart's lack of oxygen-rich blood is called ischemia.
Not getting enough oxygen to the heart muscle increases the risk of heart attack and may cause a painful condition called angina.
Most of the time, the best treatment for angina is coronary artery bypass surgery. But for some patients with very serious heart disease or other health problems, bypass surgery may be too dangerous. Also, some patients may have had many coronary artery bypass operations and be unable to have more bypass operations.
For patients who cannot have bypass surgery, there is a procedure called transmyocardial laser revascularization, also called TMLR or TMR. TMLR cannot cure CAD, but it may reduce the pain of angina.
TMLR is a type of surgery that uses a laser to make tiny channels through the heart muscle and into the lower-left chamber of the heart (the left ventricle). The left ventricle is the heart's main pumping chamber.
After TMLR, when oxygen-rich blood enters the left ventricle, some of that blood can flow through the tiny channels and carry much-needed oxygen to the starving heart muscle.
