Heart Port Catheter:
Different catheters have been used in animal and human studies to remove contrast agents from CS. Movahed et al. used a Heartport catheter (Ethicon Inc., Cornelia, Georgia) (Figure 11 ) for engaging CS through external jugular veins of pigs plus 11-Fr sheath. This catheter has a balloon at its end and it was inflated after contrast injection to collect blood from the CS. Fluoroscopy images were taken to confirm the complete CS occlusion by injecting contrast to the distal of the inflated balloon. Obstruction of CS by catheter tip did not show any negative effects on CA findings and it was well tolerated in all five recruited swine samples and no significant hemodynamic changes were reported after blood extraction. They measured iodine concentration by quantitative dual energy method (86).