What is cardiac catheterization?

Cardiac catheterization, also known as cardiac cath or heart catheterization, is a medical procedure used to diagnose and treat certain heart conditions. This allows doctors to closely monitor the heart to identify problems and perform other tests or procedures.

Your healthcare provider may recommend cardiac catheterization to find the cause of symptoms such as chest pain or an irregular heartbeat. Before the procedure, you may need diagnostic tests, such as blood tests, heart imaging tests, or stress tests, to determine how well your heart is working and to help guide the procedure.

During cardiac catheterization, a long, thin, flexible tube called a catheter is inserted into a blood vessel in your arm, groin or upper thigh, or neck. The catheter is then passed through the blood vessels to your heart. It can be used to examine your heart valves or to take samples of blood or heart muscle. Your doctor may also use ultrasound, a test that uses sound waves to create an image, or they may inject a dye into your coronary arteries to see if your arteries are narrowed or blocked. Cardiac catheterization may also be used instead of some heart surgeries to correct heart defects and replace heart valves.

who needs it

Your healthcare provider may recommend cardiac catheterization to find out what is causing your heart problem symptoms or to treat or repair a heart problem.

Cardiac catheterization can be used for a variety of purposes.

Provide a better understanding of other test results, such as echocardiography (echo), cardiac MRI, and cardiac CT scan. This is especially helpful if the results of those tests don’t identify a problem or are different from what your doctor finds when they examine you.
diagnose heart conditions such as arrhythmia, heart attack, pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathy, coronary heart disease, and heart valve disease, including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation.
Evaluate yourself before potential heart surgerysuch as heart transplant.
measure oxygen level and blood pressure in the chambers of your heart and in the pulmonary arteries.

Your doctor may perform other procedures during cardiac catheterization to diagnose or treat your condition.

take a biopsy Small samples of heart tissue for further laboratory testing. Biopsies may be used for genetic testing, to check for myocarditis (a type of heart inflammation), or to look for transplant rejection.
use coronary angiography Visualizing the heart or blood vessels by injecting dye through a catheter.
perform minor heart surgery To treat congenital heart defects and to replace or widen narrowed heart valves.
use percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) To open narrowed or blocked areas of the coronary arteries. PCI may involve balloon dilation, also known as angioplasty, or stent placement. Most people who have a heart attack or have underlying heart disease have narrowed or blocked coronary arteries.
apply catheter ablation To treat arrhythmia.

Who should not undergo cardiac catheterization?

Your doctor may wait to perform the procedure or recommend that you should not have cardiac catheterization if you have any of the following conditions:

abnormal electrolyte levels in your blood
acute gastrointestinal bleeding
acute kidney failure, or severe kidney disease that is not being treated with dialysis
acute stroke
the blood has become too thin due to blood thinners or other causes
high levels of digoxin, a heart medicine used to treat heart failure or arrhythmias, in your blood
Prior severe allergic reaction to a dye used during cardiac catheterization
severe anemia, which has a lower-than-normal amount of red blood cells or hemoglobin
unexplained fever
untreated infection

Source: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/cardiac-catheterization

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