Angiocardiography. Assessment of the Procedure

¹ St. Paul, Minnesota

It is our feeling that the emphasis on the diagnosis of cardiac malformations is misplaced and that the emphasis should be primarily on angiocardiography with physiologic

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determinations kept at a minimum and used selectively to point up the physiologic abnormalities that relate directly to the abnormal anatomy visualized by angiocardiography. We further believe that all phases of the angiocardiographic segment of cardiac diagnosis properly belong in the hands of the trained cardiovascular radiologist. During the past four years in our institution, this approach has been effective. The primary emphasis is on angiocardiography and only a minimal amount of physiologic data is obtained, primarily pressure studies. In many cases of cyanotic heart disease, the entire evaluation can be made on the basis of angiocardiography. Physiologic studies are, in our opinion, often irrelevant. It is also extremely important in young infants with cyanotic heart disease that the diagnostic procedure be short and precise, and prolonged procedures, in order to gather yards of paper with multiple humps, curves and wiggly lines is, in a practical sense, unnecessary and inadvisable.