Our Minimally Invasive Approach to Diagnose and Treat Cardiovascular Disease
Our doctors provide minimally invasive, catheter-based techniques to prevent, diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases. We also provide emergency treatments for life-threatening events such as heart attacks. Our team is committed to providing you with the most compassionate, innovative diagnostic and interventional cardiac catheterization techniques available.
During a cardiac catheterization procedure, your doctor will put a catheter (a small, flexible tube) into a blood vessel through your groin or wrist to reach your heart. This allows your doctor to look in your arteries to see if there are any problems with your heart’s function or blood flow.
Your doctor can use cardiac catheterization to:
- Detect the presence and severity of blockages in the arteries
- Determine how well heart valves are functioning
- Diagnose congenital heart defects (disease present from birth)
- Evaluate how coronary artery bypass grafts are working
- Evaluate how well the heart is pumping
- Find damage from a previous heart attack
If we detect any blockages in your arteries during your catheterization, we’ll discuss your treatment plan options with you. Depending on how much of a blockage you have, as well as any other conditions, your treatment plan may include:
- Balloon angioplasty (a minimally invasive procedure in which we’ll thread a catheter with a special balloon to the blockage and inflate the balloon to re-expand your artery)
- Stent placement (a minimally invasive procedure in which we’ll thread a catheter to the site of your blockage and place a mesh tube called a stent to hold the artery open)
- Coronary artery bypass surgery (open-heart surgery to use a blood vessel from another area of your body to divert blood around the blocked artery)