Angiography
An angiogram is an imaging test that uses x-rays to view your body’s blood vessels. Physicians often use this test to study narrow, blocked, enlarged, or malformed arteries or veins in many parts of your body, including your brain, heart, abdomen, and legs. When the arteries are studied, the test is also called an arteriogram. If the veins are studied, it is called a venogram.
- What Is Coronary Angiography?
- What To Expect Before Coronary Angiography?
- What To Expect After Coronary Angiography ?
- Key Points - Coronary angiography
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What To Expect Before Coronary Angiography
For the procedure, you lie on your back on an X-ray table. Because the table may be tilted during the procedure, safety straps may be fastened across your chest and legs. X-ray cameras may move over and around your head and chest to take pictures from many angles.
An intravenous line is inserted into a vein in your arm. You may be given a sedative through the IV to help you relax, as well as other medications and fluids. Electrodes on your chest monitor your heart throughout the procedure. A blood pressure cuff tracks your blood pressure and another device, a pulse oximeter, measures the amount of oxygen in your blood. You may receive medication to help prevent your blood from clotting on the catheter and in your coronary arteries.
A small amount of hair may be shaved from your groin or arm where the catheter is to be inserted. The area is washed and disinfected and then numbed with an injection of local anesthetic. A small incision is made at the entry site and a short plastic tube inserted into your artery or vein. The catheter is inserted through the sheath into your blood vessel and carefully threaded to your heart or coronary arteries.
Dye is injected through the catheter. The dye is easy to see on X-ray images and as it moves through your blood vessels, your doctor can observe its flow and identify any blockages or constricted areas. Depending on what your doctor discovers during the angiography, you may have additional catheter procedures at the same time, such as a balloon angioplasty or stent placement to open up a narrowed artery.
When the angiography is over, the catheter is removed from your arm or groin and the incision is closed with a patch, clamp, manual pressure or stitches. The angiography itself takes about one hour, although it may be longer, especially if combined with other heart catheter procedures. Preparation and post-procedure care can add several more hours.
Before having coronary angiography, talk to your doctor about:
- • How the test is done and how to prepare for it
- • Any medicines you're taking, and whether you should stop taking them before the test
- • Whether you have diabetes, kidney disease, or other conditions that may require taking extra steps during or after the test to avoid complications
Your doctor will tell you exactly which procedures will be done. For example, your doctor may recommend angioplasty if the angiography shows a blocked artery.
You will have the chance to ask questions about the procedure. Also, you'll be asked to provide written informed consent to have the procedures done.
It may not be safe to drive after having cardiac catheterization, which is part of coronary angiography, so you must arrange for a ride home.
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During coronary angiography, you're kept on your back and awake. That way, you can follow your doctor's instructions during the test. You'll be given medicine to help you relax. The medicine may make you sleepy.
Your doctor will numb the area where the catheter (a small plastic tube) will enter the blood vessel through a small cut in the arm, groin (upper thigh), or neck.
The doctor then threads the catheter through the vessel up to the opening of the coronary arteries. Special x-ray movies are taken of the catheter as it's moved up into the heart. The movies help your doctor see where to position the tip of the catheter.
Your doctor will put special dye in the catheter when it reaches the correct spot. This dye will flow through your coronary arteries and make them show up on an x ray. This x ray is called an angiogram. If the angiogram reveals blocked arteries, your doctor may use angioplasty to restore blood flow to your heart.
After your doctor completes the angiography, or the angiography and angioplasty, he or she will remove the catheter from your body. The opening left in the blood vessel will then be closed up and bandaged.
A small sandbag or other type of weight may be put on top of the bandage to apply pressure. This will help prevent major bleeding from the site.