The cardiac catheterisation laboratory environment

Summary

The type and the complexity of interventional coronary and non-coronary structural therapies  have evolved rapidly. These developments have created new challenges and opportunities in the traditional architecture of catheterisation laboratories.

Over the last twenty years, the cardiac catheterisation laboratory has evolved from being a service focused on the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease into a true “multipurpose space”, in which colleagues from different backgrounds, including interventional cardiologists, echocardiography experts, cardiac surgeons, and anaesthesiologists can collaboratively engage in complex cardiac therapeutic procedures.

This chapter examines the evolution of the architecture and organisation of the cardiac catheterisation laboratory from its origins to its current modern standards, and describes new technologies that allow novel structural interventions, and streamline established ones, to allow increasingly complex interventions, all while improving patient safety. 

Introduction

Originally dedicated to the study of cardiopulmonary function and coronary diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, the adult cardiac catheterisation laboratory has evolved into a place where elective and non-elective diagnosis and therapy of a broad spectrum of coronary, peripheral artery, and structural heart diseases, as well as hybrid procedures in conjunction with cardiac surgical interventions, are performed. The organisational structure and the technology found in the catheterisation laboratory have facilitated...