title: Comparison between intra-venous versus intra-arterial heparin during transradial coronary artery catheterization.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Trans-radial coronary artery catheterization is gaining popularity, heparin has been proven to reduce the rate of radial artery occlusion, intra-venous or intra-arterial heparin have no effect on the radial artery occlusion, we investigate the effect of route of heparin administration on different procedure related parameters.
  
  
  METHODS
  We randomized 150 consecutive patients to receive intra-venous (75 patients) or intra-arterial (75 patients) heparin; the two groups were compared regarding different procedure related parameters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The success rate was over 99% and rate of radial artery spasm was about 5%. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding the parameters tested.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The trans-radial angiography can be performed successfully in the Saudi population, Studies with larger sample size are needed to show a significant difference between intra-arterial and intra-venous heparin administration.
authors: Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of Dammam.
authors: Mohammed
authors: M
authors: Almansori
authors: Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, University of Dammam.
authors: Shady
authors: S
authors: Ouf
keywords: Angiography; Heparin; Radial