Explanation

Angiography is when a doctor injecs some dye into your blood vessels so that he or she can see them in an x-ray photo. There are different types of angiography for different parts of your body, for example, renal angiography looks at your kidneys and coronary angiography looks at your heart.

Why do I need one?

You may need angiography if you have problems with your circulation.

Angiography gives your doctor a really good view of your blood vessels which are the tubes that carry your blood around your body. Your blood vessels supply blood to all of your internal organs like your heart, brain and lungs as well as to your arms and legs. Without blood, your organs can't work properly and can even stop working all together. This can be very dangerous.

The dye that is infected makes your blood vessels visible in an x-ray photo. This can help your doctor look closely at how your blood is flowing to different organs. It can help your doctor to detect things that change your blood vessels or where your blood goes such as a brain tumour or an aneurysm.

Your doctor may also use angiography to see if you need surgery and to plan how to do surgery.

What happens before I have it?

It's very important that you tell your doctor and radiologist if you know you have any allergies, especially to iodine, which is part of the dye used in angiography.

Make sure you tell your doctor and radiologist about any illnesses you have, especially any problems with your heart, liver or kidneys.

You will have to go to the Radiology Department in a hospital for your angiography.

How is it done?

First you will get a local anaesthetic to numb your leg or arm. Sometimes, if you need to your doctor will give you a general anaesthetic which will make you go to sleep. A radiologist will put a catheter into an artery in your leg or arm. He or she will then inject some special dye inside your artery and then take lots of x-ray photos of you. When the radiologist has enough photos, he or she will take the catheter out and press your leg to stop any bleeding.

The whole procedure will take between 20 minutes and 90 minutes.

Will it hurt?

You will get an anaesthetic so angiography won't hurt at all, but you might feel a bit uncomfortable. When the anaesthetic wears off, you might feel some pain in your leg where the radiologist inserted the catheter afterwards. You can use painkillers to help with this.

What happens next?

You will normally only have to stay in the ward for a few hours for your leg to recover and then you can go home. Sometimes, the doctor will get you to stay overnight so that he or she can check on you.

Your doctor will get the results from the radiologist in a few days and he or she will then talk to you about them.

What if I have any other questions?

If you have any other questions, you can ask your doctor, or chat to other people about angiographies in the Medikidz forums and virtual world, Mediland.