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Why it's done
By Mayo Clinic staffYour doctor may recommend that you have a coronary angiogram if you have:
- Symptoms of coronary artery disease, such as chest pain (angina)
- Pain in your chest, jaw, neck or arm that can't be explained by other tests
- New or increasing chest pain (unstable angina)
- A heart defect you were born with (congenital heart disease)
- Heart failure
- Other blood vessel problems or a chest injury
- A heart valve problem that requires surgery
You may also need an angiogram if you're going to have surgery unrelated to your heart, but you're at high risk of having a heart problem during that surgery.
Because there's a small risk of complications, angiograms are usually done after noninvasive heart tests have been performed, such as an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram or a stress test.
References
- Eastwood J. Nurse's role in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. In: Moser DK, et al. Cardiac Nursing: A companion to Braunwald's heart disease. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:339.
- Angiogram. Society for Vascular Surgery. http://www.vascularweb.org/vascularhealth/Pages/angiogram.aspx. Accessed Dec. 16, 2010.
- Cardiac catheterization. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/cath/cath_all.html. Accessed Dec. 14, 2010.
- Coronary angiography. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/ca/ca_all.html. Accessed Dec. 14, 2010.
- Kern MJ, et al. Physiological assessment of coronary artery disease in the cardiac catheterization laboratory: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association Committee on Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiac Catheterization, Council on Clinical Cardiology. Circulation. 2006;114:1321.
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