The American Heart Association provides guidelines for pediatric therapeutic cardiac catheterization in response to the dramatic increase in its utilization and expanding types of amenable lesions.
This American Heart Association statement provides guidelines on the appropriate use of therapeutic cardiac catheterization in pediatric patients.
D uring the last few years, pediatric cardiologists have witnessed a dramatic change in the utilization of the cardiac catheterization lab- oratory.1-21 Improved noninvasive diagnostic tech- niques have narrowed indications for diagnostic cardiac catheterizations while the laboratory is now increas- ingly being used for therapeutic procedures. Recently, numerous catheter techniques, increased numbers of persons and centers using these techniques, and the increased number of lesion types thought to be amena- ble to catheter therapy have caused concern about the appropriateness of some applications of pediatric ther- apeutic cardiac catheterization.
Allen et al. (Fri,) conducted a review in Congenital Cardiac Defects. Pediatric therapeutic cardiac catheterization was evaluated. The American Heart Association provides guidelines for pediatric therapeutic cardiac catheterization in response to the dramatic increase in its utilization and expanding types of amenable lesions.