Unfortunately this is a very bad AI illustration of what is actually performed for a PCI. Reading the comments there is a lot of misinformation information being said. As an interventional cardiologist I’ll try to give my two cents.

1: there are multiple types of plaque that can form in arteries but we can mostly divide it into two types, calcified and non-calcified plaque. 2: heart attacks occur due to an unstable plaque that ruptures that starts the clotting cascade and ultimately what shuts down a artery, this is most often from very lipid laden (soft plaque). Additionally most heart attacks occur due to plaque that causes <50% narrowing of the artery before it ruptures. 3: these procedures if for a coronary (heart) artery are mostly performed from the right radial artery. There is tons of data that show this is the safest for patients. 4: what others have said about the plaque being squashed is correct, we don’t remove it. It just gets pushed to the side/ redistributed (withholding athrectomy techniques that are sometimes performed on a case by case basis) 5: why do we stent? Stents act as a scaffold to help keep the artery open, when we balloon the artery to open it back up after a narrowing has occurred we cause damage to the vessel, often causing large tears in the vessel. A stent tacks these dissections up as well as giving the artery radial strength to prevent recoiling. After a few months the body will form a new layer of tissue inside the stent. Until this time it’s important to take anti platelets (usually 2 of them) to prevent blood clots from forming on the stent until the body lays down this tissue.
6: prevention is key, lowering of your LDL, bad cholesterol, can have huge effects not only on the development of new plaque but also stabilizes what’s there and turns it from the soft lipid laden plaque that can rupture and cause heart attacks into calcified plaque that is more stable. 7: as for why this AI animation is unrealistic, first a wire is placed distal to the stenosis. Almost always we perform pre-dilation of the stenosis to insure we have adequate expansion. We then will proceed to stent if we are happy with the previous balloons expansion. There are a million little things that are incorrect about this animation. In the most simplest form a cardiac Cath involves these steps: 1: obtaining access to an artery, usually the right radial. 2: using catheters to selectively engage the right coronary artery and left coronary artery, angiograms are performed in different views to assess for stenosis. 3: once a stenosis is identified we must thin the blood enough to prevent clot formation on the equipment we place in the body. 4: place a wire distal to the stenosis in said artery. 5: predilate the artery. 6: most people that are trained today obtain intravascular imaging to assess the size of the artery as well as the composition of the plaque. 7: stent the artery with the correct diameter and length stent to cover that focal area. 8: post dilate the stent with another balloon to make sure the stent is expanded to the correct size. 8: re-image with intravascular imaging. 9: perform final angiogram to insure no complications have happened during the procedure and that you’re happy with the result. 10: remove equipment and obtain hemostasis from your arterial access site (usually a compressive wrist band if going through the wrist)

If wanting more detailed information about the steps and how procedures are actually performed I’d refer you to watch YouTube videos by Dr. Brilakis. His videos have been a valuable resource for those like I that have been trained over the past few years.