Use of the GuideLiner catheter in facilitating coronary and graft intervention.

Visualization of distal vessel run-off following contrast injection in a coronary artery or bypass graft may be poor due to suboptimal 'seating' of the catheter or to competitive antegrade or retrograde flow from native vessels. In situations where percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is deemed necessary, such poor visualization may be compounded by poor guide catheter (GC) support, rendering intervention difficult or even impossible. These limitations may be overcome by deeply intubating the proximal or mid segment of the target vessel with a smaller GC through the outer GC. This double-coaxial catheter arrangement is often referred to as 'mother and child', with the outer GC being the 'mother' and the inner GC being the 'child'. Recently, several such catheters have become commercially available, including Terumo's Heartrail II catheter and Vascular Solutions' GuideLiner catheter.