Heart Port Catheter:
Different catheters have been used in animal and human studies to remove
contrast agents from CS. Movahed et al. used a Heartport catheter
(Ethicon Inc., Cornelia, Georgia) (Figure 11 ) for engaging CS
through external jugular veins of pigs plus 11-Fr sheath. This catheter
has a balloon at its end and it was inflated after contrast injection to
collect blood from the CS. Fluoroscopy images were taken to confirm the
complete CS occlusion by injecting contrast to the distal of the
inflated balloon. Obstruction of CS by catheter tip did not show any
negative effects on CA findings and it was well tolerated in all five
recruited swine samples and no significant hemodynamic changes were
reported after blood extraction. They measured iodine concentration by
quantitative dual energy
method (86).