Vascular dysfunction of brachial artery after transradial access for coronary catheterization: impact of smoking and catheter changes.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of diagnostic transradial catheterization on vascular function of upstream brachial artery (BA).
Background: The transradial access has recently become an alternative to transfemoral cardiac catheterization. A potential caveat of this approach lies in possible sustained physical radial artery (RA) damage.
Methods: We studied 30 patients (age 61 +/- 11 years) undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography with the transradial access (5-F). Endothelium-dependent, flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) was measured before and at 6 and 24 h after catheterization of the right-sided RA and BA with high-resolution ultrasound. The left-sided RA served as a control.
Results: Transradial catheterization significantly decreased FMD in the RA (overall mean 8.5 +/- 1.7% to 4.3 +/- 1.6%) and the upstream BA (overall mean 4.4 +/- 1.6% to 2.9 +/- 1.6%) at 6 h. Subgroup analysis showed that FMD of both arteries at 6 h was significantly lower in active smokers and that it only remained impaired at 24 h in this group, whereas nonsmoker FMD fully recovered. The degree of BA but not RA FMD dysfunction was related to the number of catheters used, with no change after 2 catheters, 1.9 +/- 1.2% decrease (6 h) and recovery (24 h) after 3 catheters, and 3.9 +/- 1.2% decrease (6 h) without recovery (24 h) after 4 to 5 catheters. The RA dysfunction correlated with the baseline diameter. The contralateral control RA exhibited no change ruling out systemic effects.
Conclusions: Transradial catheterization not only leads to dysfunction of the RA but also the upstream BA, which is more severe and sustained in smokers and with increasing numbers of catheters.