This article is from in the January 2008 issue of DOTmed Business News. A list of registered users that provide sales & service can be found at the end.

Heart disease is one of the deadliest and most expensive illnesses, claiming over 500,000 lives annually in the U.S. alone, while costing a staggering $394 billion in health-care expenditures and lost productivity, according to the Center for Disease Control.

Indeed, one in five of us will someday require heart and/or stroke treatment. When seeking care, a single special procedure room often stands between patient life and death.

Called the Catheterization Angiography Laboratory (or Cath/Angio Suite), this hive of overhead "arms," computer screens, camera mounts, generators, ceiling lights and X-ray shields provides minimally invasive catheter-based radiological procedures to inpatients and outpatients seeking diagnostic evaluation and/or therapeutic intervention. Depending on the amount of equipment and staff, these rooms can range from 9X12 to 20X20 and contain some of the most expensive and cutting-edge immediate-care medical treatment available today.

Typically, Cath/Angio labs serve young and old, from neonate to elderly, suffering heart disease, valvular disease, arrhythmias, peripheral vascular disease, intracranial vascular lesions, strokes, and more. The "cath" part of the lab provides the medical procedure. The "angio" part refers to various types of "image" taking, meant to peer as closely as possible into veins, arteries, hearts, brains, and other organs, creating not only two-dimensional, but, often 3-D and now digital views of blood vessels and tissues.

For example, to diagnose heart disease, a lab will perform a Cardiac Catherization (also called a cardiac cath or coronary angiogram). This is an invasive imaging procedure that allows a doctor to actually "see" how a heart is functioning by "testing" it. A long, narrow tube, called a catheter, is inserted into a blood vessel in an arm or leg and guided to the patient's heart with the aid of a special X-Ray machine. Contrast dye is injected thorough the catheter to view blood flow to the valves, coronary arteries and heart chambers.




However, the recent ability to create 3-D reconstructions of blood vessels and soft tissues allows interventions guided by technology that is a "quantum leap in angiographic imaging," according to Dr. Michael Marks, chief of Interventional Neuroradiology at Stanford Hospital & Clinics. Advanced digital tools help physicians see detailed views of the operating area, leading to greater accuracy and better results.

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