Strong Heart and Vascular Center

Diagnosis

Angiography: What to Expect

You’ll have your angiography in our cardiac catheterization lab. One of our cardiologists will perform the procedure.

Your angiography will take about 2-3 hours. First, you’ll be sedated and given a local anesthetic. Next we’ll insert a needle into a large artery—usually in your groin or arm. Then, we’ll insert a catheter (a long slender tube) into the vessel through the incision. We’ll slowly and carefully thread the catheter through the artery until its tip reaches the part of the artery that we need to examine.

Next, we inject a small amount of contrast dye through the catheter and into the blood vessel segment, and we take the x-ray (angiogram). The contrast dye makes it easy for us to see the blood vessels and any blockages on the x-ray images.

One of our cardiologists specially trained in angiography will study the X-ray and report on his or her findings.

If you require a stenting procedure (coronary angioplasty), you’ll need to spend the night at the hospital. But if you're having an angiogram for diagnostic purposes only, you can go home approximately 4 hours after your angiography.