Interventional cardiology

Interventional cardiology is a branch of the medicalspecialty of cardiologythat deals specifically with the mechanical treatment of heart diseases.

A large number of procedures can be performed to the heartby catheterization. This involves the insertion of a sheath into the femoral artery(or theoretically any large peripheral artery) and cannulating the heart under X-rayvision (most commonly fluoroscopy, a real-time x-ray).

Procedures performed by specialists in interventional cardiology:

• Angioplasty(PTCA, Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty) - for coronaryatherosclerosis
• Radiofrequent ablation- for arrhythmias
• Mace procedure - for atrial fibrillation
• Insertion of artificial pacemakersis not necessarily limited to interventional cardiology.

Surgery of the heart is done by the specialism of cardiothoracic surgery. Some interventional cardiology procedures are only performed when there is cardiothoracic surgery expertise in the hospital, in case of complications.

See also

• Catheter
• Cannula
• Stent
• Restenosis

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interventional+cardiology Wikipedia article Interventional cardiology.