Cardiac Catheterization Risks and Complications

Excerpt

Cardiac catheterization is one of the most widely performed cardiac procedures. In the United States, more than 1,000,000 cardiac catheterization procedures are performed annually. As expected, in any invasive procedure, there are some patient-related and procedure-related complications. With significant advances in the equipment used for cardiac catheterization, the improved skill of the operators, and newer techniques, the rates of these complications have been reduced significantly. The term cardiac catheterization can refer to either right heart catheterization or left heart catheterization, or both. The procedure can be either diagnostic or therapeutic, and interventional cardiologists can perform a variety of interventions depending on the clinical need. This review briefly reviews the expected risks and complications for a routine, diagnostic, cardiac catheterization procedure.