There are several established treatments for heart attacks. These all relate to the cause of the attack which is stenosis or blockage of a coronary artery. The material of these stenoses are often called plaque.
The first and oldest treatment, is AVG or autogenous vein graft bypass surgery, commonly called, a bypass graft. This is invasive, required up to six months of recovery time and the patient is susceptible to infection. They simply splice a vein from the patients leg around the blockage in the coronary artery.
The second treatment is PTCA or percutaneous transluminal coronary atherectomy, commonly called angioplasty. This involves a balloon inflated with fluid at the end of a catheter deployed into the femoral artery up through the aorta and into the coronary artery and blockage. This is less invasive than bypass surgery and the patient can be discharged in a day or two post operatively.
The third treatment is called a stent which is an internal tubular cage that is deployed on the PTCA balloon inflated and left in the patient's blocked artery to hold it open. These have the advantage of maintaining the viability of the vessel for much longer than the angioplasty however, both angioplasty and stenting have high rates of reblockage or restenosis (upwards of 60%).
The most recent method of treatment is a debulking catheter. This is deployed identically to the angioplasty catheter but instead of a balloon it has a retractable blade and works similarly to a carpenter's wood plane by shaving plaques off, containing them in the catheter and removing them from the patient.