First case:
A cath surgery is to be performed in both left and right side of the heart due to the patient’s shortness of breathing.
- First a wire will be placed inside the heart to determine the amount of oxygen there are leaks in the valves.
- Water will then be injected and connect it with a thermostat in the atrium and pulmonary to determine the temperature inside the body.
- The procedure begins at the left coronary side
- The next step is to block the femoral in order to stop the blood circulation in the left coronary side.
- In bypass surgery, the catheter is being placed to identify any damages in the right heart and the veins are being measured for pressure to identify any potential damage.
- The procedure did not result to finding blockage as the cause of the shortness of breathing, but rather caused by another unexpected reason.
Second case:
- Cath surgery intended only for the left side of the heart.
- The patient has a suspecting blockage that needs to be examined
- In this case, a needle will be inserted in the patient’s arm when putting a wire inside to reach the heart.
- The procedure needs to determine indications of high troponin levels, which means the patient has a possible heart problem.
- Pictures of both the left and right coronary arteries will be taken.
- The wire inserted inside the heart will allow monitoring of the ventricles and to see if they squeeze evenly. If any of the parts appears to be not functioning properly, the tissues may have died, or further testing will have to done to identify another cause of the problem.
- Checking the valves is also important to determine if they are working correctly particularly if the blood does not go to the atrium and to make sure that the ventricles are working properly.
- Therefore, if the patient has a blockage in RAO, a special dye will be injected to locate the blockage. If there is an instance of blockage in the arteries, it will not allow the blood to flow through. In this case, a blockage exists in the circumflex artery.
- Locating the blockage will require insertion of a 3cm wire with a camera to the arteries.
- Then they put a balloon, which has two markers to measure plaque inside the blockage area. The balloon will also push the plaque outside the area. Then they take balloon off and put a stent. There are two types of the stent: permanent and drugs-induced stent which releases drugs inside the body for a period of time
- In this case, they put a permanent stent inside the plaque area to extend the size of it. It is 4 cm stent that pushes the lumen and tissue.
- Then they take pictures inside the heart and now the arteries looks like normal.
- Then they put a wire inside the aorta and inject it to see if the valves are leaking or if the heart has some problems in the valve.
