Meadows Regional is one of the few hospitals offering an advanced form of angioplasty called radial angiography. In angioplasty, an interventional heart treatment, a board-certified cardiologist uses an inflatable balloon to release a blocked artery. The traditional approach to the procedure has been through the femoral artery starting in the groin.

In radial angiography, the catheter inserts at the wrist and approaches the heart via the radial artery. This approach often gives patients greater post-surgery mobility, a shorter hospital stay and fewer complications. This new approach is especially good news for women who often have a greater risk of post-surgical complications than men.

A patient often undergoes angioplasty during a heart attack, ideally, before the lack of blood flow permanently damages heart muscle. Angioplasty and stent implantation are the preferred treatments of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiologists for emergency heart attack treatment.