Miller School Cardiologists Host Transradial Intervention Training Course

Nearly 20 physicians from Latin America, Canada and the United States took part in an interventional cardiology training course at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, learning the latest procedures to access the heart through the radial artery in the wrist, rather than the femoral artery in the groin.

“This transradial approach can improve patient outcomes, especially in high-risk patients,” said Mauricio G. Cohen, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory. “More than 70 percent of our cardiac catheterization procedures involve access through the radial artery – almost twice the national average – and we have seen clear benefits in terms of lower bleeding, fewer vascular complications, and improved patient satisfaction.”

Dr. Cohen organized the “Transradial Intervention Course: Translating Data and Technique into a Successful Transradial Practice,” held June 7-8 at UHealth Tower, the University of Miami’s hospital. The immersive educational experience included presentations by international leaders in the field, a live case demonstration, and hands-on training at the School of Nursing and Health Studies’ simulation hospital on the Coral Gables campus.

“Simulation training has the potential advantage of speeding up the learning curve with complex procedures,” said Carlos E Alfonso, M.D., associate professor of clinical medicine and director of the cardiology fellowship program. “It allowed our attendees to become familiar with the commonly encountered scenarios in transradial intervention. We will also continue collaborating with the nursing school as we develop a curriculum for simulation training as a part of our cardiovascular fellowship program.”

Keynote speakers were Ferdinand Kiemeneij, M.D., Ph.D., an interventional cardiologist at Tergooi, The Netherlands, who is widely recognized as the “father of transradial intervention” for teaching and disseminating this procedure in the 1990s, and Darren Klass, M.D., Ph.D., an interventional radiologist at Vancouver General and UBC Hospitals in Vancouver, Canada.

“Our presenters demonstrated several cases to the attendees highlighting the techniques for distal transradial access, which is a growing trend in transradial interventions,” said Dr. Alfonso. “Distal transradial access can even be used for some of the more complex coronary interventions.”

In the past decade, Dr. Cohen has trained dozens of U.S. and international fellows in radial access techniques. “The U.S. is lagging behind Europe and Japan, where about 80 to 90 percent of interventional procedures are done with the transradial approach,” he said. “But expect this approach will continue to grow as more cardiology fellows enter practice.”

Tags: cardiac catheterization, Dr. Carlos Alfonso, Dr. Mauricio Cohen, transradial intervention