Cardiac Catheterization Procedures

Via cardiac catheterization, an interventional cardiologist can:

• Look for blockages in your blood vessels (also called an angiogram)
• Check oxygen and pressure levels in your heart
• Take a biopsy of your heart tissue (also called endomyocardial biopsy)
• Look at your heart’s valves
• Identify a congenital heart defect
• Collect blood samples from inside your heart
  
  

The tests performed via cardiac catheterization can help diagnose the following heart conditions:

• Atherosclerosis
• Coronary artery disease
• Congenital heart disease
• Cardiomyopathies, including dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and restrictive cardiomyopathy
• Heart valve disease
• Heart failure

In addition to its use in diagnosing heart conditions, cardiac catheterization is sometimes a component of various nonsurgical heart treatment options.

The types of heart procedures that can performed via cardiac catheterization include:

• Coronary or peripheral angioplasty – restores blood flow to the heart by opening blood vessels that are narrow or blocked (also called percutaneous coronary intervention)
• Stenting – often performed during angioplasty, a small wire mesh tube is inserted to help keep the blood vessel open
• Radiofrequency ablation – creates a barrier between damaged heart tissue and healthy heart tissue, preventing abnormal electrical signals from traveling to the rest of the heart
• Atherectomy – removes plaque buildup in the coronary arteries
• Percutaneous septal defect – used to repair a hole in the muscular wall between the left and right heart chambers
• Balloon valvuloplasty – opens narrowed heart valves using a small balloon
• Alcohol septal ablation – improves blood flow by destroying abnormally thickened heart muscle
• Brachytherapy – places a new stent inside of an old stent to prevent renarrowing of a blood vessel
• LARIAT or WATCHMAN procedure – closes off the heart's left atrial appendage, the primary source of blood clots in patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib)

Cardiac catheterization is performed in a hospital’s catheterization (cath) lab. This is a room with special imaging machines and other tools needed for catheterization.

In most cases, cardiac catheterization is performed while you are awake, but sedated. Some procedures, however, including ablation and valve repair, may require general anesthesia.

During this procedure, a thin, flexible tube called a catheter is inserted into an artery vessel in the arm, groin or neck and guided to the heart. Your interventional cardiologist is then able to thread tiny tools through the catheter to diagnose or treat your heart condition.