On 6-7-2010 15:42, Invisible wrote:
>>> Good god.. he's making cardiology jokes.. :/
>>>
>> Well, at least he is trying to. I decided not to correct him, because 
>> that would be too easy for me.
> 
> Hey, I spent about 2 hours researching that. OK, it's not the same as a 
> lifetime, but I tried. (Wikipedia is surprisingly unhelpful here...)
> 
> At least I didn't say it was through the aorta. (That, of course, would 
> be the way *from* the heart, not *to* it.) I bothered to get that much 
> right. ;-)

yes and no ;) Blood exits the heart via the aorta, but it used to be the 
standard entry point for catheters if you wanted to go to the left 
ventricle (where many arrhythmias originate). Nowadays the route via the 
right atrium, though the atrial septum, to the left atrium and from 
there to the left ventricle is also often used.
BTW as you rightly guessed, that implies that the vast majority of 
catheterizations go via the inferior vene cava. Entering via the 
superior vene cava is very uncommon, except for the wires of a pacemaker 
or ICD (I guess you ended up in webpages describing those procedures).

In principle you can also enter via the right outflow tract and there 
are also in general 4 lung venes (that transport oxygenated blood from 
the lungs to the left atrium). Of the top of my head I don't know of any 
procedure that uses any of those entry points.

To complete the picture you can also us a sternotomy or a laporoscopic 
procedure, but don't try that at home.

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