Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization
For decades, cardiac catheterization has been at the core of testing for heart disease, in particular for determining if a patient has atherosclerotic narrowing of the small arteries on the surface of the heart called coronary arteries. The "coronaries" provide the critical blood supply to the muscular walls of the heart. Coronary artery disease typically causes chest pain (angina) and weakened heart capacity. Patients with the condition are at risk for heart attack (when these arteries become so severely blocked that the heart wall no longer receives adequate blood supply, is in acute danger of sustaining permanent injury, and has difficulty contracting).
To detect and assess coronary artery disease, cardiologists evaluate patients in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. With the patient under sedation, the cardiologist makes a small incision on the inside of the patient's thigh and to the femoral artery located there, in order to introduce slender, flexible tubes called catheters into the circulatory system. The cath-lab team advances a catheter up and into the coronary arteries and infuses a contrast material into these arteries, to make them easy to trace on the highly sophisticated x-ray equipment located over and around the lab's treatment table.
Using this approach (of x-ray images enhanced with contrast dye, an imaging modality known as fluoroscopy) the team can create a "road-map"-like picture of the circulatory system on the outside of the heart that supplies blood to heart tissue. The cardiologist can determine which arteries have normal circulation and can identify any narrowed or blocked coronary arteries. The lab team can make very exacting measures of the extent and location of any compromised areas. The team may elect to treat these areas in the same cath-lab session or in a follow-up session.
Cardiac catheterization laboratories provide diagnostic catheterization on an elective basis, to evaluate possible symptoms of coronary artery disease, or an emergency basis, to evaluate a possible heart attack. In many cases, the team will proceed directly to angioplasty during the catheterization.
1-888-LOURDES
