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Why it's done
By Mayo Clinic staffCardiac catheterization is done to see if you have a heart problem, or as a part of a procedure to correct a heart problem your doctor already knows about.
If you're having cardiac catheterization as a test for heart disease, your doctor can:
- Locate narrowing or blockages in your blood vessels
- Find out the amount of oxygen in your heart
- Test the pressure inside your heart
- Take a sample of tissue from your heart (biopsy)
- Diagnose heart defects present from birth (congenital heart defects)
- Look for problems with your heart valves
Cardiac catheterization is also used as part of some procedures to treat heart disease. These procedures include:
- Angioplasty with or without stent placement. Angioplasty involves temporarily inserting and expanding a tiny balloon at the site of your blockage to help widen a narrowed artery. Angioplasty is usually combined with implantation of a small metal coil called a stent in the clogged artery to help prop it open and decrease the chance of it narrowing again (restenosis).
- Closure of holes in the heart. Some congenital heart defects involving holes in the heart can be treated by threading a catheter to the hole to close it, rather than having open-heart surgery.
- Balloon valvuloplasty. This procedure can open narrowed heart valves by threading a catheter with a balloon-like device to the part of your heart valve that's narrowed and inflating it.
- Eastwood J. Nurse's role in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. In: Moser DK, et al. Cardiac Nursing: A companion to Braunwald's heart disease. Philadelphia, Pa..: Saunders Elsevier; 2007339.
- Barbara Woodward Lips Patient Education Center. About your heart-catheter procedures. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2005.
