Understanding Cardiac Catheters: Types, Uses & Procedures

A cardiac catheter is a thin, flexible tube that a surgeon threads into the heart through an artery or vein in the groin, arm or neck. A cardiologist can use a cardiac catheter to evaluate pressure, flow and oxygenation in the heart, to examine or perform procedures in the chambers and blood vessels of the heart, or to obtain a heart tissue sample.

Right Heart Catheters

• Cardiologists use right heart catheters primarily to evaluate the pressures and flow in the right atrium, right ventricle and pulmonary vasculature. Surgeons insert right heart catheters into a major vein such as the femoral or internal jugular vein and float them back to the heart by the force of the blood returning to the heart.

Left Heart Catheters

• Left heart catheters are similar to right heart catheters except that the catheter is threaded into the left side of the heart via one of the major arteries such as the femoral, brachia or radial. Cardiologists can use the catheter to measure pressures and flows in the left side of the heart.

Coronary Angiography

• Coronary angiography is one of the most innovative developments in modern medicine. It involves passing special-shaped catheters into the major arteries that deliver blood to the muscle of the heart. A cardiologist injects contrast dye through the catheter so he can visualize lumen of the arteries on radiographic imaging. Cardiologists use this method when they suspect narrowing of the coronary arteries as in cardiovascular disease.