Cath Lab
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has been performing cardiac surgery since the 1940s and helped pioneer open-heart surgery in North Carolina. Our staff members are industry leaders and experts in a number of cardiac health areas, including cath lab procedures. Through the years, Medical Center cardiologists and heart surgeons have made major contributions in the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease.
Cardiac catheterization, a procedure preformed in a cath lab, involves the passage of a catheter (a thin flexible tube) into the right or left side of the heart. Generally this procedure is performed to obtain diagnostic information about the heart or its blood vessels or to provide therapeutic interventions in certain types of heart conditions.
The Heart Center Cath Lab Firsts
Many patients say what they remember most about their cardiac catheterization procedures is the wait afterwards. With new technology, patients are up and around in less than an hour. At the Heart Center of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, our cath lab was the first in North Carolina to use two new closure devices: one that pulls needles through the artery wall and closes the incision with a suture and another than combines suturing with a plug to seal the artery.
Learn more about our cath lab and the Heart Center of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.