Early Ambulation and Vascular Complications in Patients under Cardiac Catheterization through the Femoral Artery: An Updated Systematic Review

Cardiac catheterization is one of the major diagnostic procedures in CADs involving examination of the right or left part of the heart and the coronary arteries. The present study aimed to systematically review the best time to leave the bed with superior care efficacy and minimum complications. Google Scholar, Pub Med, ISI Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched to obtain the relevant articles. All the clinical trial studies that mentioned all three clinical trial indices, including randomization, control, and intervention groups, were included. Nine RCT papers accounting for 2242 subjects were systematically reviewed. The rest time in bed varied from 2 to 24h. The sandbag's weight in the angiography catheter insertion site ranged from 2.3 to 4.5 kg. All studies revealed that despite decreasing the post-angiography bed hospitalization duration, early ambulation caused no significant difference in the emergence and severity of the angiography-induced complication (hematoma and hemorrhage) in the intervention group compared to the control group. The pain severity difference between the intervention and control groups was statistically addressed in some studies, and the results indicated that the reduction of hospitalization duration managed to decline the pain severity in the intervention group significantly. This review study suggests that the patients can leave the bed 2-4 h after the procedure, which can reduce low back pain and urinary complications.