International Day of Interventional Cardiology is observed on September 16, a date declared by the UN with the aim of improving people’s health and increasing life expectancy worldwide.

Non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases, cause almost 70% of all deaths worldwide, and their prevalence continues to rise.

These diseases pose a serious health risk and a burden on society, which is why there is a push to promote cardiology as a branch of medicine that increases life expectancy and improves people’s health.

Interventional cardiology is a subspecialty that performs minimally invasive procedures, meaning they do not require large incisions. Instead, small instruments are used so that incisions or cuts are just millimeters in size.

The main conditions it treats include:

• Coronary artery disease

• Heart valve disease

• Disease of other heart structures

• Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

• Hypertension

• Congenital heart defects