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When in-office cardiac testing doesn’t provide an answer to a patient’s heart condition, your cardiologist may turn to an interventional cardiologist for help. Interventional procedures are minimally invasive techniques that allow the interventional cardiologist to assess your heart muscle from inside your heart.

UM Capital Region Medical Center offers two dedicated cardiac catheterization labs and a dedicated electrophysiology lab where these specially trained doctors can perform a number of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

Cardiac Catheterization

An interventional cardiologist will access your heart through a tiny tube that is inserted either through your groin, neck or arm. This tube is directed to the heart, and the interventional cardiologist will feed a tiny camera through that tube to your heart, allowing the doctor to see exactly what is happening.

Cardiac catheterizations can be used to diagnose a heart issue, to take a biopsy, or to perform procedures such as angioplasty and stent placement. In addition, catheterization can be used to preform advanced minimally invasive procedures to treat severe arterial blockages, coronary calcification and other coronary artery revascularizations. 

Advanced Interventional Procedures 

Rotational atherectomy is an advanced technique that uses image-guided tools to gently carve away severe calcified coronary lesions that are not treatable with a traditional angioplasty. This allows the placement of a stent without the risk of under-expansion.

Intravascular lithotripsy uses acoustic pressure waves to break up severe superficial and deep calcium deposits so that a vascular stent can be successfully placed.

Percutaneous left ventricular assist device (PVAD) is a tiny pump that pumps blood from the left ventricle to the rest of the body. Unlike a traditional left ventricular assist device (LVAD) which is implanted into the chest, the PVAD is placed outside the body. It is connected to the circulatory system by small tubes inserted into the femoral artery.

The PVAD is intended for short term use while a treatment decision is made, the patient makes a recovery or a permanent LVAD is implanted.

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