Cardiovascular Angioplasty: Radial access vs. Femoral access

[MarPazRN]

I am a nursing student in an RN-BSN program and currently work on a telemetry unit where I care for a lot of patients who are post cardiovascular angioplasty procedure. So far, all of my patients who have had an angioplasty procedure are accessed through the femoral artery. I know that the radial artery may be used as an access site as well, but I have never seen one performed. There are benefits to using a radial artery: it sits close to the skin, easier to detect and stop post-angioplasty bleeding, and get up and walk faster. I read a report from Harvard Health in which a Canadian study had been performed on people who had radial artery angioplasty. Their results proved that the patients who had radial artery angioplasty less often (1.4%) needed a blood transfusion than patients who had femoral artery angioplasty (2.8%). Also, deaths in the year that followed the procedure were lower from 2.8% in the radial artery group and 3.9% in the femoral artery group.

My question that I would like to ask: For patients undergoing angioplasty, is radial access as effective as femoral access? What have you seen through your practice? Have you seen any studies that prove otherwise?

I would appreciate your response.

Thank you,
Marisol Paz