Clarian Cardiovascular offers transradial cardiac catheterization

Oct 9 2009

Clarian Cardiovascular has established the Midwest’s only Transradial Center of Excellence in an effort to offer patients a catheterization procedure that significantly reduces recovery time and improves patient outcomes – transradial cardiac catheterization.

Transradial cardiac catheterization uses the wrist, not the groin, for catheter insertion. While this technique isn’t new, less than 2 percent of cardiac catheterizations in the United States use the transradial approach because only a small percentage of interventional cardiologists are trained in this specialized procedure. In fact, transradial access leads the way in many parts of the world, including Europe, Japan, China and Canada.

Cardiac catheterization is a test to check the heart and coronary arteries and helps doctors assess heart muscle functioning and detect heart disease, an often fatal condition that leads to 1.5 million heart attacks annually nationwide.

Traditionally, cardiac catheterization uses the femoral artery in the right groin as the point of insertion for the catheter. This entry point is often difficult to access and may be hard to compress after the procedure to stop the bleeding. The recovery time for the femoral approach is 20 minutes of pressure followed by 6-8 hours of bed rest to allow the hole in the groin to heal.

The transradial catheterization is performed using an artery in the wrist. This technique is safer, offers no scarring, a decreased risk of bleeding, lowered risk of all complications, less risk of trauma to adjacent nerves and blood vessels, reduced hospital and health care costs and a shorter recovery period. The recovery time for the transradial approach is less than 2 hours bed rest and discharge within 4 hours depending on the procedure.

Transradial cardiac catheterizations benefit all patients but especially those with low back pain, arthritis, obesity and peripheral vascular disease.

Clarian Cardiovascular’s Transradial Center of Excellence, under the direction of George Revtyak, MD, FACC, FSCAI, FAHA, is the only Center of Excellence located in the Midwest.

“The femoral approach remains the dominant technique because it is easy to learn. However, this common approach leads to substantial patient discomfort due to prolonged groin compression resulting in immobilization,” said Dr. Revtyak. "That’s why it was important for Clarian Cardiovascular to establish the Transradial Center of Excellence so people in the state of Indiana and beyond have access to another cardiac catheterization option that is truly beneficial in more ways than one.”

The Clarian Transradial Center of Excellence will also offer a physician training center with state-of-the-art equipment at Methodist Hospital where cardiologists will receive hands-on training covering the clinical and practical aspects of transradial access, including the use of simulators to focus on the use of different catheters and their tactile feel. The 3-D component of the simulator allows physicians to truly understand how catheters respond to torque and steering.

The transradial catheterization technique was pioneered by a Dr. Lucien Campeau, a French-Canadian physician, in 1989, and in August 1992, the first patients were treated with this procedure at the Amsterdam Department of Interventional Cardiology of the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Casthuis in Amsterdam.