Cardiac Services
Cardiac Catheterization & Interventional Cardiology
St. Luke's cardiac catheterization laboratory (cath lab) recently performed 30,000 cases. More than 2,200 patients are accommodated each year. Recently, the cath lab moved to digital data archiving and offers new catheter technologies to treat difficult occlusions.
Interventional procedures at St. Luke's Hospital include:
- Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) with and without stent insertion
- Balloon angioplasty
- Cutting balloon interventions
St. Luke's on-call team performs emergency catheterizations 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Cardiac catheterization
now offers an excellent strategy for obtaining critical information before undergoing surgery or making a diagnosis. It is one of the most accurate tests in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease, and over a million tests are performed each year.
The technique allows a physician to:
- Identify narrowed or clogged arteries;
- Evaluate the heart's valves and chambers;
- Assess for congenital heart anomalies; and
- Improve blood flow to parts of the heart.
Cardiac catheterization includes four major procedures:
- Measurement of blood pressure within the heart's major arteries
- Taking blood samples for analysis
- Coronary angiogram, which involves the injection of a dye through the catheter and into the coronary arteries, allowing X-rays of the coronary arteries to be taken.
- Left ventriculogram, which involves injecting dye through the catheter and into the left ventricle. This dye allows for X-rays to be taken of the left ventricle, which gives the physician information on the functions of the heart.
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