Complications of selective angiocardiography.

Abstract

With the rapid development of surgical procedures for the treatment of congenital and acquired cardiovascular defects, the need for more precise radiographic methods for the anatomical demonstration of the cardiovascular system has become increasingly apparent. This need has prompted a continuing improvement in contrast media, radiographic equipment, and injection technics, and has led to our present methods of selective angiocardiography. Since the introduction in 1933 by Chavez et al. (1) of direct intracardiac injection of contrast material, and the report in 1949 by Jonsson and his coworkers (5) of a technic of selective intracardiac injection by catheter, thousands of selective angiocardiographic examinations have been performed. As additional experience has been gained, some of the complications of this radiographic procedure have been recognized, and occasional reports have been published describing specific examples. A search of the literature, however, failed to reveal any comprehensive discussio...