Diagnostic Catheterization

A world leader in cardiac catheterization

A diagnostic cardiac catheterization allows interventional cardiologists to test your heart muscle and the arteries that keep it supplied with blood.

 Cardiac catheterizations are usually very safe and takes place inside a catheterization laboratory, or cath lab.

Your physician team inserts a catheter (a long, thin, flexible tube) through a large blood vessel (typically in the groin) that leads to your heart. A contrast dye is injected through the catheter so that X-ray images show how the blood flows through your heart and where the arteries might be narrowed or blocked.

The doctors will also evaluate the pressure in your heart's chambers, examine your heart valves and chambers, measure the oxygen content of your blood, and examine the ability of your heart chambers to contract when they pump blood.

Depending on what the doctors find, they may perform a percutaneous coronary intervention to open and repair blocked arteries.

World-Renowned Evaluation and Treatment

The CardioVascular Institute is a world-renowned leader in cardiac catheterization to evaluate symptoms and treatment options for coronary and valvular heart disease.

Noted for Hemodynamics

The CVI is noted for our detailed hemodynamic (blood pressure and blood flow) studies of heart failure and pulmonary hypertension. The institution's leadership in hemodynamics was established by William Grossman, MD, a former lab chief who wrote the definitive text book in diagnostic catheterization.