Incidence of complications from coronary angiography in 463 USAF aviators

Over 600 fliers have had coronary angiography at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine since 1971. This paper concerns the incidence of complications, long- and short-term, on the first 463. Information on short-term complications was compiled from computerized data storage and included all 463 patients. Mean age of patients was 40.5 with a range of 22-57 years. Information about long-term complications was obtained from 357 respondents to a three-page questionnaire (77% return rate). Most frequent indication for angiography was an abnormal treadmill stress test, and more than 90% of the patients were asymptomatic. There was no short-term mortality. Nine individuals reported some residual complaints involving the hand, but had no job or physical activity limitation from the procedure. The local arterial complications were more frequent with brachial cutdown than with the femoral percutaneous approach, but the difference in frequency was not statistically significant.