Angiogram

A guide for patients and carers

What happens during the test?

  • You will be taken into a room with large, high technology equipment.
  • There will usually be at least three people in the room during the procedure - the radiologist, the radiographer and the nurse.
  • You will be transferred across onto the table in the room. The nurse will put sterile towels over you and clean an area in your groin.
  • The radiologist will put some local anaesthetic in your groin so you will not be able to feel what is going on. The radiologist will then put a very small
    tube (catheter) into the blood vessels in your groin. This is passed through the other blood vessels in your body until it reaches your neck. (You will not feel it moving inside you).
  • The radiologist will then position the tube into different blood vessels in the neck. During this time, injections of a special dye known as a contrast agent are given which help to give more detail on the pictures. The injection may give you a general warm feeling, but this goes away quickly.
  • Before the pictures are taken, the radiographer will move the equipment around you into the correct position and then pictures are taken during further injections.

It is very important that you remain still whilst this is happening in order that the best possible pictures can be taken. The whole procedure is likely to take at least one hour.

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Angiogram

ISBN 1 901893 31 6
£2