Interventional cardiology in small animals

Interventional cardiology is a branch of the medical specialty of cardiology that deals specifically with the catheter based treatment of structural heart diseases. A large number of procedures can be performed on the heart by catheterization. Although many cardiac diseases requiring open heart surgery are currently treated with cardiac interventions in human medicine, interventional cardiology is relatively recently introduced in veterinary medicine. Therefore, in this lecture, several interventional methods for various diseases of small animals, more focusing on interventional methods in heart diseases will be discussed.