MODEL RELEASED. Coronary angioplasty. Surgical team performing a coronary angioplasty procedure on a 50-year-old man. This procedure opens blocked or narrowed coronary arteries, helping to prevent a heart attack. A catheter (narrow wire) has been inserted (centre left) into a groin artery. Use of an X-ray machine (upper left) and an injection of contrast medium, highlights the coronary arteries on X-ray screens (upper right). This aids the surgeon as he passes the catheter and a stent (an expandable tube) through the body's arteries into a narrowed coronary artery in the heart. Inflation of the catheter's balloon tip expands the stent to widen and strengthen the artery. Photographed at the American Hospital of Paris, France.