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What is a Cardiac Catheterization?

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Cardiac catheterization (CC) is a common, nonsurgical procedure that can help your doctor diagnose a heart problem. In some cases, catheterization can be used to treat heart disease as well.

The procedure is done in a catheterization laboratory ("cath lab") in the newly established Heart and Vascular Center at UCSF. The physicians who perform the procedure, Drs. Thomas Ports, Andrew Boyle and Yerem Yeghiazarians, are faculty cardiologists with special training in performing these procedures with many years of expertise.


Why is Cardiac Catheterization done?

Chest discomfort and shortness of breath are a few signs or symptoms of heart disease that may concern your physician. You have probably been through a number of tests already such as a treadmill or stress test, an echocardiogram, a nuclear scan or a multislice coronary CT scan.

Your doctor is recommending a cardiac catheterization to identify the heart problem or its severity more precisely. A cardiac catheterization can show:

 

• If the blood vessels in your heart have narrowed.

• If your heart is pumping normally and blood is flowing correctly

• If the valves in your heart are functioning normally.

• If you were born with any heart abnormalities

• If the pressures in the heart and lung are normal or abnormal; and if abnormal, to further assess what the etiology of the problem might be.


Division of Cardiology, University of California San Francisco
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