Comparison between intra-venous versus intra-arterial heparin during transradial coronary artery catheterization

Trans-radial coronary artery catheterization is gaining popularity, heparin has been proven to reduce the rate of radial artery occlusion, intra-venous or intra-arterial heparin have no effect on the radial artery occlusion, we investigate the effect of route of heparin administration on different procedure related parameters.

We randomized 150 consecutive patients to receive intra-venous (75 patients) or intra-arterial (75 patients) heparin; the two groups were compared regarding different procedure related parameters.

The success rate was over 99% and rate of radial artery spasm was about 5%. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding the parameters tested.

The trans-radial angiography can be performed successfully in the Saudi population, Studies with larger sample size are needed to show a significant difference between intra-arterial and intra-venous heparin administration.