Live Webcast: From Saint Joseph's Hospital and Marshfield Clinic: May 16, 2007 at 4:00 PM CDT

On Wednesday, May 16, at 4 p.m. CDT, an Internet audience will have a rare chance to watch a heart care procedure as it happens. During a live webcast on www.OR-Live.com from Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield, Wisconsin, Marshfield Clinic interventional cardiologists will perform a live cardiac catheterization procedure as well as a possible angioplasty and stent placement. A physician moderator will be on hand to walk the audience through the procedure and give them the inside scoop on the crucial decisions the heart care team is making as they happen.

Juan Mesa, MD; Kamilla Buddemeier, MD; Milind Shah, MD; and Sherief Rezkalla, MD, all Marshfield Clinic interventional cardiologists on staff at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield, will participate in this live webcast.

During a cardiac catheterization, a physician inserts a thin flexible tube called a catheter into an artery or vein in the arm or leg, and then advances the catheter into the chambers of the heart or coronary arteries. In order to view blockages in the arteries, physicians will inject a dye through the catheter and if a blockage is detected, a balloon can be inflated (angioplasty), which compresses the plaque against the artery wall and opens it. Additionally a stent, or wire mesh tube, can be deployed to hold the artery open.

According to the American Heart Association, one in three American adults have at least one type of cardiovascular disease. In 2004, approximately 1.3 million cardiac catheterizations and an estimated 664,000 percutaneous coronary interventions (angioplasties and stents) were performed in the United States.

Visit http://www.or-live.com/StJoseph/1600 now to learn more and view a program preview.