The patient is brought to the catheterization laboratory and placed on a special examination table. After local anesthesia is given, a catheter is inserted into blood vessels in the groin, arm, or neck. (The catheter is inserted either through a small incision, or by means of a needle-stick. Sometimes, catheters are inserted from more than one site.) The catheter is advanced through the blood vessels to the heart.
Once in the heart, the catheter can be maneuvered to various locations within the heart. By attaching the catheter to a pressure transducer, the pressures within various chambers of heart can be measured. Blood samples can be withdrawn from different locations in order to measure the amount of oxygen in the blood (unusual variations in blood oxygen can signal a "shunt," or abnormal blood flow within the heart, often caused by congenital heart defects.) Finally, by injecting dye through the catheter while a series of rapid x-ray images is recorded, "movies" can be made of the blood flowing through the cardiac chambers, or the through the blood vessels surrounding the heart - a procedure know as angiography (also called arteriography).
Once the procedure is completed, the catheter(s) are removed. Bleeding is controlled by placing pressure on the catheterization site for 30 - 60 minutes.
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