Dirk Jan van der Heijden1, MD; Maarten A.H. van Leeuwen2, MD; Stijn L. Brinckman3, MD; Maribel I. Madera Cambero3, MD; Tamara Aipassa4, MD; Priya Vart5, PhD; Robert-Jan M. van Geuns4, MD, PhD; Niels van Royen4, MD, PhD
1. Department of Cardiology, Haaglanden Medical Center, The Hague, the Netherlands; 2. Department of Cardiology, Isala Heart Center, Zwolle, the Netherlands; 3. Department of Cardiology, Tergooi Hospital, Blaricum, the Netherlands; 4. Department of Cardiology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; 5. Department of Health Evidence, section Biostatistics, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences Radboud University Medical center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
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 ...