… or, An Angioplasty Also Won’t Make You Taller Over a million coronary angioplasties are performed in the US each year.  In this procedure a thin tube is threaded into a narrowed coronary artery.  Through this tube a balloon is inflated to open the narrowed artery, and then a stent (a metal mesh tube) is placed to keep the newly expanded artery open. Some large well-designed studies in the last few years have taught us that angioplasty is a life-saving procedure in the setting of an a...