What causes radial artery occlusion?
Dr. Pancholy: Surprisingly, until about a year ago, we did not know the cause. We were hypothesizing as if we knew, but we had no proof. We had a number of imaging studies, ultrasonography, every once in a while contrast angiography, which would show us that the radial artery was occluded, but we never really got into the mechanism. There were lots of theories, such as growth of extra tissue, scar growth which will then occlude the lumen like it does in the coronary artery after we do angioplasty. A lot of people thought, “Well clot’s got to be a player. Blood clotting at the local area because of the trauma to the artery is definitely a mechanism and then afterwards it becomes organized into a scar.” But there was no proof for this. Q: Why was it so difficult to find the cause of radial artery occlusion? Dr. Pancholy: The reason there was no proof was because radial occlusion is such a benign complication that nobody ever needs to go to the operating room to get it fixed. So there had
