Let’s Talk Health: A Look Inside A High-Tech Cath Lab

 An inside look into a high-tech cardiac catheterization lab, better known as a cath lab, can be both fascinating and life-saving. Dr. Barry Lowell, Medical Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab and Cardiac Rehab at Saint Clare’s Health, believes the updated cath lab at Saint Clare’s Health offers the highest quality and most advanced technology available, anywhere. 

Understanding the treatments options inside a high-tech cardiac catheterization begins with the difference between elective angioplasty and emergent angioplasty. 

Elective angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that involves a catheter, which is a flexible plastic tube. The catheter with a small balloon dilates, or “opens up”, a blocked artery that supplies your heart muscle with blood. The balloon compresses built-up plaque and creates a wider channel for blood to flow. Emergency angioplasty is a life-saving procedure designed to open coronary artery blockages that are impeding proper blood flow to the heart.

“At Saint Clare’s Health, we have been performing emergency angioplasty for patients having heart attacks for many years. We quickly assemble an exceptional team to treat and open the arteries of people experiencing heart attacks. In that instance, a blood vessel on the heart is occluded generally with plaque and a clot. Within 90 minutes, we have the vessels open through angioplasty, and we cease any damage that may arise in a patient’s heart,” Dr. Lowell explained. 

“Elective angioplasty is an exciting new addition to what we do. We have recently begun providing the same services electively for patients who are experiencing any type of coronary obstructive disorder, like angina or a small heart attack,” Dr. Lowell added. “We have learned that angioplasty of this nature is safe, and we are very comfortable providing these comprehensive services. The technologies have allowed us to safely treat people electively, and in most instances send them home on the very same day.”

The new technologies available at Saint Clare’s Health allow Dr. Lowell to treat his patients at the hospital in a way that is both local or around the corner from his patients, as well as ahead of the curve in providing advanced technology for critical heart procedures.

“From the 1990s onwards, we were working with balloons and then subsequently stents, and we were working under X-ray conditions. Today, our technologies provide us the opportunity to look directly inside the artery and characterize the nature of the blockage. Is it a flaw? Is there calcium? Is it just a single blockage or perhaps several?”  Dr. Lowell queried. “We can use various different technologies which enables us to provide our patients with the safest and highest quality of care depending upon what we're up against, and can readily choose another modality versus a stent, for example, if need be.” 

“These changes in technology bring about better outcomes for patients both in the short term and the long term,” Dr. Lowell added. “When we were using mostly balloons, they were not as durable as we would prefer. Later, after stents were more widely used, a substance was developed that made it inert so it wouldn’t react adversely with the body, making them virtually permanent. We can also now place stents more effectively as a result.”

Dr. Lowell pointed out that Saint Clare’s Health employs these types of advanced technologies within the smaller, more intimate confines of its facilities, providing patients with the same advantages found at larger academic hospitals. 

“At this point in time, I can comfortably tell you that we have the absolute best imaging, best technology and the most high-quality angioplasty catheterization laboratory services available anywhere in the country. This new technology has taken us leaps further. We are able to assess the physiology of the blood flow characteristics in blood vessels. We are able to see inside of blood vessels,” Dr. Lowell said. “After working in this field, I am able to see things better than before. We are so proud of this lab.”

Along with the benefits created by the use of new technologies, Dr. Lowell outlined how Saint Clare’s provides the rehabilitation and recovery services needed to ensure continued cardiac health.

“From our perspective, we think of our cardiac rehab program as a cardiovascular wellness program. Not only are we treating patients post-heart attack or post-placement of stents, we are treating people with peripheral arterial disease, or who have difficulty walking,” Dr. Lowell said. “What we do is also more than just a program of exercise. Our nurses provide exceptional care. They teach dietetics and lifestyle change, and it becomes a separate community in and of itself.”

“I might also add that our program here at Saint Clare's Health is perhaps the largest and one of the few programs that offers not only acute cardiac rehab for people who have had a recent incident, but we offer maintenance, which most other places do not,”  Dr. Lowell added. “As a result, it's been a wonderful and rewarding experience for the patients."

For more information on Saint Clare’s Cardiac program, visit www.saintclares.com/cardiac.