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Information about Angiography

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Patient about to undergo an angiogram, image courtesy of WHO.
Angiography or arteriography is a medical imaging technique in which an X-ray picture is taken to visualize the inner opening of blood filled structures, including arteries, veins and the heart chambers. Its name comes from the Greek words angeion, "vessel", and graphien, "to write or record". The X-ray film or image of the blood vessels is called an angiograph, or more commonly, an angiogram.

The Portuguese physician and neurologist Egas Moniz, Nobel Prize winner in 1949, developed in 1927 the technique of contrasted x-ray cerebral angiography to diagnose several kinds of nervous diseases, such as tumors and arteriovenous malformations. He is usually recognised as one of the pioneers in this field. With the introduction of the Seldinger technique in 1953, the procedure became markedly safer as no sharp introductory devices needed to remain inside the vascular lumen.

Angiograms require the insertion of a catheter into a peripheral artery, e.g. the femoral artery.

As blood has the same radiodensity as the surrounding tissues, a radiocontrast agent (which absorbs X-rays) is added to the blood to make angiography visualization possible. The angiographic X-Ray image shows shadows of the openings within the cardiovascular structures carrying blood (actually the radiocontrast agent within). The blood vessels or heart chambers themselves remain largely to totally invisible on the X-Ray image.

The X-ray images may be taken as either still images, displayed on a fluoroscope or film, useful for mapping an area. Alternatively, they may be motion images, usually taken at 30 frames per second, which also show the speed of blood (actually the speed of radiocontrast within the blood) traveling within the blood vessel.

The most common angiogram performed is to visualize the blood in the coronary arteries. A long, thin, flexible tube called a catheter is used so as to administer the radiocontrast agent at the desired area to be visualized. The catheter is threaded into an artery in the groin or forearm, and the tip is advanced through the arterial system into one of the two major coronary arteries. X-ray images of the transient radiocontrast distribution within the blood flowing within the coronary arteries allows visualization of the size of the artery openings. Presence or absence of atherosclerosis or atheroma within the walls of the arteries cannot be clearly determined. See coronary catheterization for more detail.

Angiography is also commonly performed to identify vessel narrowing in patients with retinal vascular disorders, such as diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.

Types of angiographs

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A coronary angiogram (an X-ray with radio-opaque contrast in the coronary arteries) that shows the left coronary circulation. The distal left main coronary artery (LMCA) is in the left upper quadrant of the image. Its main branches (also visible) are the left circumflex artery (LCX), which courses top-to-bottom initially and then toward the centre/bottom, and the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, which courses from left-to-right on the image and then courses down the middle of the image to project underneath of the distal LCX. The LAD, as is usual, has two large diagonal branches, which arise at the centre-top of the image and course toward the centre/right of the image.

Historic usage

The term angiography, or angeiography, was originally used of a description of the weights, measures, vessels, etc, used by several nations.

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See also: Radiology, Radiography
Medical imaging refers to the techniques and processes used to create images of the human body (or parts thereof) for clinical purposes (medical procedures seeking to reveal, diagnose or examine disease) or medical science
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X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz to 30 EHz. X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography.
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Arteries are muscular blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart.[1] All arteries, with the exception of the pulmonary and umbilical arteries, carry oxygenated blood.

The circulatory system is extremely important for sustaining life.
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vein is a blood vessel that carries blood toward the heart. The majority of veins in the body carry low-oxygen blood from the tissues back to the heart; the exceptions being the pulmonary and umbilical veins which both carry oxygenated blood.
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Heart chamber is a general term used to refer to any of the four of the mammalian heart (an organ):
  • Right atrium: receives oxygen-depleted blood from the body via the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava and pumps it through the tricuspid valve into the right

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Greek}}} 
Writing system: Greek alphabet 
Official status
Official language of:  Greece
 Cyprus
 European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
 European Union
 Italy
 Turkey
Regulated by:
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The blood vessels are part of the cardiovascular system and function to transport blood throughout the body. The most important types, arteries and veins, carry blood away from or towards the heart, respectively.
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Anthem
"A Portuguesa"


Capital
(and largest city) Lisbon5

Official languages Portuguese1
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António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz (born November 29, 1874, died December 13, 1955), pron. IPA: ['ɛgɐʃ mu'niʃ], was a Portuguese psychiatrist and neurosurgeon.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1910s  1920s  1930s  - 1940s -  1950s  1960s  1970s
1946 1947 1948 - 1949 - 1950 1951 1952

Year 1949 (MCMXLIX
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20th century - 21st century
1890s  1900s  1910s  - 1920s -  1930s  1940s  1950s
1924 1925 1926 - 1927 - 1928 1929 1930

Year 1927 (MCMXXVII
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Cerebral angiography or arteriography is a form of medical imaging that visualizes the arterial and venous supply of the brain. It was pioneered by Dr Egas Moniz in 1927, and is now the gold standard for detecting vascular problems of the brain.
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The Seldinger technique is a medical procedure to obtain safe access to blood vessels and other hollow organs. It is named after Dr. Sven-Ivar Seldinger (1921-1998), a Swedish radiologist from Mora, Dalarna County, who introduced the procedure in 1953.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1950 1951 1952 - 1953 - 1954 1955 1956

Year 1953 (MCMLIII
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In medicine a catheter is a tube that can be inserted into a body cavity, duct or vessel. Catheters thereby allow drainage or injection of fluids or access by surgical instruments. The process of inserting a catheter is catheterisation.
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The femoral artery is a large artery in the muscles of the thigh.

Structure

The femoral artery is a continuation of the external iliac artery, which comes from the abdominal aorta.
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Radiodensity is the property of relative transparency to the passage of X-rays through a material. Radiolucent indicates greater transparency to X-ray photons. Radiodense indicates greater opacity to X-ray photons.
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See also:
Radiocontrast agents (also simply contrast agents or contrast materials) are compounds used to improve the visibility of internal bodily structures in an X-ray image.
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X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz to 30 EHz. X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography.
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Fluoroscopy is an imaging technique commonly used by physicians to obtain real-time images of the internal structures of a patient through the use of a fluoroscope.
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The coronary circulation is the circulation of blood in the blood vessels that supply blood to and from the heart muscle itself. Although blood fills the chambers of the heart, the muscle tissue of the heart, or myocardium, is so thick that it requires coronary blood vessels to
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In medicine a catheter is a tube that can be inserted into a body cavity, duct or vessel. Catheters thereby allow drainage or injection of fluids or access by surgical instruments. The process of inserting a catheter is catheterisation.
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The groin is the at the junction of the torso with the legs and the adjacent region that includes the external genitals. The term may be used as a euphemism for genitals, since the names of the latter are taboo words in some cultures.
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For the firearm component, see .
The forearm is the structure on the upper limb, between the elbow and the wrist.[1]. This term is used in anatomy to distinguish it from the arm (or upper arm).
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X-rays (or Röntgen rays) are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz to 30 EHz. X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography.
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See also:
Radiocontrast agents (also simply contrast agents or contrast materials) are compounds used to improve the visibility of internal bodily structures in an X-ray image.
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Lumen can mean:
  • Lumen (unit), the SI unit of luminous flux
  • Lumen (anatomy), the cavity or channel within a tubular structure
  • Thylakoid lumen, the inner membrane space of the chloroplast

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Atherosclerosis
Classification & external resources

Changes in endothelial dysfunction in atherosclerosis (note text comments about geometry error)
ICD-10 I 70.
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Atheroma
Classification & external resources

ICD-10 I 70.9
ICD-9 440

DiseasesDB 1039

MeSH C14.907.137.126.307 In pathology, an atheroma
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