Comprehensive Care for Heart and Vascular Conditions
Over fifteen years ago, Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC) became one of the first rural hospitals in Arizona to offer interventional cardiology services. Since then, our program has only grown, with specialized expertise and advanced technology for treating conditions that affect the heart and blood vessels.
At the KRMC Cardiovascular Center, we provide sophisticated minimally-invasive procedures to treat heart and vascular problems. These procedures involve inserting a thin tube called a catheter in an artery or vein in your groin, neck or arm and threading it through your blood vessels to your heart. Using a catheter, our team can do diagnostic tests and treatments on your heart and blood vessels without major surgery.
Recovery time from cardiac catheterization is much faster than the time it takes to recover from major surgery and there’s a lower risk of complications.
Saving Lives from Heart Attack
A heart attack usually occurs when a blood clot in a coronary artery blocks the flow of blood to the heart. Using cardiac catheterization procedures, KRMC’s Cardiovascular Center can immediately treat blockages in blood vessels. Prompt treatment to open the artery increases your likelihood of survival.
When a heart attack victim arrives at KRMC, they are first stabilized in our emergency department. Then, if appropriate, they are rushed directly to our Cardiovascular Center to begin cardiac catheterization procedures.
Tests:
- Angiogram to locate narrowing or blockages in blood vessels and to identify problems with heart valves and other heart structures
- Hemodynamic Assessment to measure pressure and oxygen levels in different parts of your heart
- Ventriculogram to check the pumping function of your heart
Treatments:
- Angioplasty is a procedure that involves temporarily inserting and expanding a tiny balloon at the site of a blockage in a blood vessel to help widen a narrowed artery. Angioplasty is usually combined with implantation of a small metal coil called a stent in the clogged artery to help prop it open and decrease the chance of it narrowing again.
- Atherectomy is a procedure for removing plaque from a blocked or narrowed blood vessel. During this procedure, your doctor uses a special blade at the end of a catheter to extract and clear the plaque from the blood vessel.
- Balloon valvuloplasty is a procedure that can open narrowed heart valves by threading a balloon-tipped catheter to the narrowed part of the valve and inflating it.
- Shockwave intravascular lithotripsy uses a catheter to deliver sonic waves to break up calcium build-up in the vessels of the heart.
- Pacemaker implantation to help maintain a normal heartbeat.
- Thrombolytic Therapy is a treatment used to break up dangerous clots inside your blood vessels. To perform this treatment, your doctor uses a special attachment at the tip of the catheter to deliver clot-busting medications or to mechanically break-up the clot.
