Cardiac catheterization

Cardiac catheterization is a specialized procedure in which a long, flexible tube—a catheter—is inserted into a vein or artery and guided into the heart.

• It’s often used instead of open-heart surgery to treat congenital heart defects.
• Children’s performs hundreds of cardiac catheterizations a year.
• Children’s trains more specialists in performing the procedure than any other hospital in the United States.

How Boston Children’s Hospital approaches cardiac catheterization

Children’s interventional catheterization specialists us catheterization to observe a fetus or child’s heart structure, measure blood pressure, close holes, expand narrowed passages and open new passages. The procedure is now used in instances that once required surgery.