Efficacy and safety of radial and femoral access in patients with acute coronary syndrome undergoing coronary intervention

Redial - Registration of intervention by radial access

Abstract

Introduction: the transradial access has emerged as an attractive alternative to the femoral access for coronary angiography and coronary interventions. We describe our experience, and compare the radial access with a cohort of femoral access in a time period.

Objective: to identify vascular complications related to coronary angiography in patients of the chest pain unit of a high complexity institution of the city of Medellin.

Materials and Methods: epidemiological, observational, analytical study of a retrospective cohort of patients over 18 years admitted to the chest pain unit of the University Hospital San Vicente Foundation with diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome with and without ST elevation in which coronary angiography by radial and femoral access was performed.

Results: 675 patients were evaluated. 59.6% (n = 402) underwent femoral access, and 40.4% (n = 273) radial access with differences in relation to sex and personal aspects such as smoking and chronic kidney disease. Regarding complications according to the type of access, significant differences were found in regard to the presence of femoral hematoma (OR = 5.6; 95% CI: 1.28; 24.63) and radial artery spasm (p <0.05).

Conclusion: the radial and femoral accesses are safe and effective; however, the significant decrease in vascular complications may be a reason to prefer the radial access as technique of choice in most of these patients. (