Cardiac catheterization indications
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Resident Survival Guide |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Cardiac catheterization is performed to diagnose and assess the severity of aortic, coronary artery, pulmonary arterial, valvular, pericardial and myocardial disease.
Indications for Cardiac Catheterization
- Confirm the presence of a suspected heart ailment
- Quantify the severity of the disease and its effect on the heart
- Seek out the cause of a symptom such as shortness of breath or signs of cardiac insufficiency
- Make a patient assessment prior to heart surgery
- To measure intracardiac and intravascular blood pressures
- To take tissue samples for biopsy
- To inject various agents for measuring blood flow in the heart; also to detect and quantify the presence of an intracardiac shunt
- To inject contrast agents in order to study the shape of the heart vessels and chambers and how they change as the heart beats