Distal radial access in percutaneous non-coronary interventions

Since the inception of interventional cardiology and for decades, the femoral artery has been the only access of choice for coronary angiography and intervention. Over the past 20 years an extensive evidence data accumulated, and most interventional cardiologists around the world have almost completely switched to routine radial access in both elective and emergency procedures, and in the last 5 years, a similar trend has been observed about distal radial access. Non-coronary endovascular interventions go through all the same stages to improve and optimize the approaches, but in a more accelerated way. The aim of this review was to analyze the literature on distal radial access in non-coronary interventions. Currently, according to retrospective studies and single observations, there is a clinical benefit to perform non-cardiac endovascular interventions through distal radial access. However, it is necessary to conduct prospective studies in the context of early, mid-term and long-term outcomes. Received 16 February 2022. Revised 31 March 2022. Accepted 1 April 2022. Funding: The study did not have sponsorship. Conflict of interest: Authors declare no conflict of interest. Contribution of the authors: The authors contributed equally to this article.