MedicalXpress -- Doctors should consider using catheterization as a treatment tool in addition to its established role in diagnosing children with heart defects, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement. A catheter is a thin flexible tube inserted into a blood vessel and used in procedures such as angiography, in which physicians use the catheter to inject dye into the arteries near the heart to illuminate the vessels via X-ray technology. It can also open a valve, enlarge a narrow blood vessel, close a hole in the heart or close off a blood vessel.
