Locations & Hours | Radiology Services & Procedures | Insurance Info | Policies & Payments Angio-Interventional by James T. Holbrook, M. D. Angiography is a specialized x-ray test used to diagnose abnormalities of arteries and veins. Angiography is most commonly used to evaluate for artery blockages. Blockages of leg arteries may cause leg pain when walking. Brain artery blockages may cause strokes or stroke symptoms. Blocked kidney arteries may cause high blood pressure. Angiography is also used to evaluate aneurysms (bulging or ballooning out of blood vessels) and blood vessel malformations as well as to diagnose problems not resolved by other tests. An interventional radiologist, who is a specially trained doctor, performs this x-ray procedure. During the procedure, the radiologist carefully inserts a catheter (a small, flexible tube about the size of a piece of spaghetti) into the blood vessel of your groin or upper arm. Once a catheter is inside of your blood vessel, you will not feel it being moved. The radiologist then moves the catheter to the blood vessel area to be studied while watching the catheter movement on an x-ray television monitor. When the catheter reaches the blood vessel site of interest, the radiologist injects contrast material (x-ray dye) through the tube while taking x-ray pictures. The contrast agent makes blood vessels visible on x-ray pictures. This allows the radiologist to see blood vessel blockages or other abnormalities of blood vessels.