A randomised trial of sheathless versus conventional access for transradial interventions

Introduction

Recent studies have reported a high rate of transradial access (TRA)-induced vascular injury which leads to chronic intimal thickening and is associated with radial artery spasm (RAS) and radial artery occlusion (RAO)1,2,3. This is likely to be caused by radial artery puncture, sheath introduction and sheath friction caused by radial artery inner diameter-sheath outer diameter (RAID/SOD) mismatch. However, using optical coherence tomography (OCT), post-procedural radial artery (RA) damage was also found in the proximal part of the RA, where the vessel has a larger diameter and RAID/SOD mismatch is less likely to be the ...