Over 80 million adults suffer from a form of heart disease. With today’s prevalence of heart disease, many adults will need coronary care or intervention in a hospital cardiac catheterization lab at some point in their lives.

Procedures such as placement of a stent or angioplasty have traditionally been performed by entering the patient’s body through an artery in the leg. With advances in technology, a new approach is now available for physicians: transradial access. This new approach can reduce complications associated with these procedures in patients.

Transradial access procedures are performed by going through the patient’s wrist to reach the artery, achieving excellent results.

The benefits of transradial access in the wrist versus femoral access in the leg are:

• Reduced bleeding and less complication from bleeding
• Quicker recovery time
• Faster return to mobility

In the more traditional leg access procedures, patients are required to stay in the hospital overnight lying flat. With wrist access, patients can walk shortly after the procedure is completed and an overnight stay is no longer necessary. In addition, there has been evidence that transradial access procedures are easier for patients who are either very obese or have difficulty lying flat.

It is anticipated that the transradial access approach to cath lab interventions will become more widespread by physicians in America over the next few years, as many hospitals and physicians in other countries such as Asia, Canada and Europe are regularly performing these types of interventions.