Study Uncovers Confusion About When To Use An Important Heart Test
Appropriate use criteria (AUC) are designed to help make sure that medical procedures and interventions are performed in people most likely to benefit and, in turn, are not performed in people unlikely to gain benefit. Now a new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that the AUC for one very widely performed procedure, diagnostic cardiac catheterization, can provide…
Filed Under: Interventional Cardiology & Surgery, Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes Tagged With: appropriate use criteria, catheterization, coronary artery disease, diagnosis
A small pilot study has demonstrated that it may one day be possible to replace x-rays with MRI to guide some cardiac catheterization procedures. As reported in the European Heart Journal, researchers at the National Heart Lung and Blood institute (NHLBI) performed x-ray and MRI-guided transfemoral right heart catheterization in 16 patients (four with shunt, nine…
Filed Under: Interventional Cardiology & Surgery Tagged With: catheterization, imaging, MRI, x-rays