The original catheter-based treatment balloon angioplasty is still used hundreds of thousands of times each year in the U.S. alone.

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Each year, doctors in America perform about a million angioplasty procedures, using a balloon-tipped catheter to open clogged arteries and relieve chest pain.

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Clinton underwent a procedure called angioplasty, the hospital said, in which a balloon catheter is threaded through an artery to the blocked vessel in the heart.

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Stents are used in angioplasty, a procedure in which a balloon is inserted into a heart artery via a catheter and used to reopen it, alleviating chest pain, allowing patients to walk and treating heart attacks.

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