Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions — written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Cardiac catheterization indications
Introduction
Overview
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
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
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]