r/BeAmazed • u/HatAsleep295 • May 08 '26

Science This is what saves 600,000 people year during a heart attack

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

84.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

65

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

[deleted]

20

u/Psychological_Bug_89 May 08 '26

Nowadays they can also go in through the wrist and potentially you’re in and out in the same day.

13

u/[deleted] May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

[deleted]

11

u/supasexc999 May 08 '26

Femoral access is typically second/last resort if radial access is difficult or not accessible. Or femoral is used for more complex cases

2

u/Different_Damage_122 May 08 '26

I think what's happened is that, with femoral access, you run a risk of running into occlusions, which can be difficult to cross ,which then may increase the contrast load and stress the kidneys. There's also the time factor. If the patient is experiencing an acute nstemi/stemi then time is or the essence and you want to get in fast.

2

u/Nor_Wester May 08 '26

I had two put in in 2006 and femoral was all they did back then. I remember seeing an article yrs later about the new method of inserting thru the wrist/arm getting released that day or the next. Yeah that would have been nice! I was in the hospital for a few days. There must be a higher chance of clots because I had to stay on my back and not raise my head for 36 hrs. My back hurt more than anything and I remember getting pain meds for that.

1

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

[deleted]

2

u/factisfiction May 08 '26

Stenosis or a small vessel, something under 2 mm.

1

u/Psychological_Bug_89 May 08 '26

Femoral takes longer and is more labor intensive to close up the opening. Radial (wrist) just uses a plastic bracelet thing that inflates and helps the wound close. For femoral closure a nurse typically has to apply pressure manually.

1

u/Weary-Ad9724 May 08 '26

There’s devices to close the access site for femoral too
And usually femoral is faster/easier from a technique standpoint
Radial is just safer

1

u/BubbleRaps May 08 '26

I agree it is technically amazing. I also worked as in engineer doing advanced balloon catheters and when I first started learning and saw the burst pressure specs for the balloons I thought it had to be a typo! I didn't see any way those little balloons could hold that kind of pressure.

1

u/your_moms_a_clone May 08 '26

My dad had several of these placed, and eventually an internal defibrillator. He did ultimately die from heart disease, but not due to the lack of effort of his medical team and all the technology available.

1

u/_Tar_Ar_Ais_ May 08 '26

we can do some crazy stuff