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Interventional Cardiology

Interventional cardiology is a medical specialty that uses catheters (thin tubes) inside your blood vessels to diagnose and treat heart conditions. These techniques require only small incisions, so you have a faster, easier recovery.

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health’s specialists offer the most advanced and effective heart catheter procedures. Our interventional cardiologists are leaders in their field and perform angioplasty, stenting and structural heart repairs with these leading-edge techniques.

Interventional cardiology: Why choose us?

You can trust our interventional cardiology team to provide you with expert care before, during and after your procedure. Highlights of our program include:

  • National recognition: U.S. News & World Report ranked Virginia Mason Medical Center No. 1 for cardiology, heart and vascular surgery in Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Oregon for the 2023-2024 award period. We earned this distinction through our comprehensive care, excellent patient experience and consistently positive outcomes.

  • Multidisciplinary team: Our interventional cardiologists work closely with cardiac surgeons, cardiac imaging specialists and cardiologists to provide exceptional care. Our approach means you have a team of experts on your side at every step.

  • Advanced techniques: We offer leading-edge heart procedures that aren’t widely available, including alcohol-based septal ablation for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) for atrial fibrillation (AFib). We are also among the few programs in the Pacific Northwest performing protected percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). This innovative procedure makes coronary stenting safer for high-risk patients.

Interventional heart procedures

We treat a range of conditions with the latest catheter-based methods. We also use hybrid operating rooms (ORs), which combine a surgical suite with advanced cardiac imaging. The hybrid ORs allow interventional cardiologists and heart surgeons to work together during procedures. With these techniques, you have small incisions and a faster, easier recovery. Our offerings include:

  • Our electrophysiologists and interventional cardiologists work together to diagnose and treat any arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation (AFib), conduction disorders and severe ventricular arrhythmias like ventricular fibrillation (V-fib). Learn more about advanced catheter ablation.

  • Our interventional cardiologists perform a high volume of alcohol septal ablation procedures for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). This minimally invasive method involves injecting pure alcohol through a narrow tube (catheter) to thin the thickened part of the heart. Learn more about our expert care for HCM.

  • Also known as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure that treats coronary artery disease (CAD)

    During angioplasty, our specialists insert a catheter into a blood vessel through your wrist or groin. We guide the catheter through your blood vessel and into the blocked coronary artery. We inflate a tiny balloon on the end of the catheter, which pushes the plaque against the walls of the artery. Then, we implant a small mesh tube called a stent to keep the passage open.

    At our center, we use state-of-the-art X-ray equipment that focuses on small coronary blood vessels. We also use specialized ultrasound that provides images of the inside of your blood vessels. This advanced technology provides the best possible results for our patients who require a stent.

    In addition, our team offers protected PCI, which uses minimally invasive techniques with the support of a heart pump. The heart pump improves blood flow to your vital organs during the procedure, allowing us to perform PCI on patients with severe heart disease and complex medical needs. 

  • We provide the newest techniques for implantable cardiac devices, including minimally invasive subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). Other advanced options include one-piece leadless pacemakers, which don’t require chest incisions or a battery under your skin. Learn more about pacemakers and implantable devices.

  • Open-heart surgery used to be the only surgical option available to treat structural heart disease and heart valve conditions. But today, there are several interventional (catheter-based) alternatives to repair or replace damaged heart valves and structural conditions. Our team is highly skilled and experienced in:

    • Atrial septal defect (ASD) repair: ASD is a hole in the wall that separates the heart’s upper chambers. We repair ASDs by guiding a catheter through a blood vessel and placing a piece of mesh over the hole.  
    • Mitral valve repair: Our interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons use proven surgical and catheter-based treatments to treat mitral and tricuspid valve regurgitation (leaking), helping your heart valve close more completely.
    • Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR): TAVR, or transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), is a procedure to treat aortic valve stenosis or regurgitation. Our interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons use this minimally invasive procedure to replace a diseased valve with an artificial valve without major surgery.
    • Patent foramen ovale (PFO) closure: A PFO is a hole in your heart that usually closes up during childhood. If the PFO remains open, it can increase your risk of stroke. We use advanced catheter-based techniques to insert a tiny plug in the PFO and restore normal heart function.

Contact us

Contact us to learn more about heart care or to schedule an appointment.