Excimer Laser Angioplasty System: Inducted in 1994
Coronary artery disease is one of the most common medical problems. When the arteries that feed freshly oxygenated blood to the heart become congested, it can result in a fatal heart attack. Treating the condition usually involves costly and dangerous surgery. One common treatment, called balloon angioplasty, uses a tiny balloon to open up the artery by stretching it open as the balloon inflates.
But since 1992 a much less invasive procedure has been in use that owes its existence to studies of Earth's atmosphere.
Developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study Earth's ozone layer, the excimer laser is a concentrated beam of ultraviolet light that never rises above 65 degrees, yet can be used as a super-fine scalpel. To clear a patient's arteries, the surgeon snakes a thin tube up with a specially-designed laser emitter on the tip up into the patient's coronary arteries. The tip spreads the laser light out in a cone, which the surgeon uses to vaporize blockages without cutting healthy tissue. And the procedure is much easier to recover from than balloon angioplasty or bypass surgery.
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