The Role of Topical Anesthetic in Radial Artery Access

Some studies have shown that the rate of spasm in the artery is much lower when you're using the topical anesthetic. We use a full dose heparin instead of the low dose 3,000 units. There is some data to show that radial artery occlusion rates are a lot lower if you're using 5,000 units of heparin. Some practices are using sublingual nitro and they can increase the radial artery diameter size by about 5 mm without a deleterious effect on blood pressure. The sheath designed it's an 018. So it slips in with a nice taper over that 018 wire. Now it's just picking your guide catheter