About the Program

Advanced Cardiac Specialists (ACS) is proud to run a quality, high volume interventional cardiovascular program.  The ACS Cardiovascular Intervention Program has three top-notch Board-certified interventionalists who are skilled, experienced and Fellows of the U.S. Society for Cardiac Angiography & Intervention.  Dr. Robert Siegel is Chief of Interventional Cardiology and heads the Cardiovascular Services at Phoenix Memorial Hospital.

The ACS Catheterization Labs

ACS is able to oversee across-the-board quality care as we operate our own cardiac catheterization laboratories.  Our General Electric (GE) Cath Lab is located at Phoenix Memorial Hospital in downtown Phoenix.  It is available round-the-clock, 24 hours a day, and is staffed by a skilled and proficient technical crew.  It boasts advanced bi-plane technology, and is the most cost-effective imaging system in the region, with no unscheduled downtime and no loss of treatment opportunity in more than six years of operation.  The lab is “cineless” and utilizes digital storage, rather than cine film, for all procedures, thus ensuring superior quality of images.  GE uses our cath lab as a show site for the company’s innovative technology.

Our mobile cath lab offers on-site state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities and electro-physiological study capability to cardiologists in Phoenix and neighboring areas.  This enables us to provide convenient, closer to home diagnostic angiography facilities to patients living in areas of the state without specialty care hospitals.  We expect to extend our expertise and out-reach facilities to other locations in the state in the future. 

Cath Lab Procedures

The ACS catheterization laboratory staff is able to draw upon the extensive experience provided by the high-volume of interventional cardiology procedures performed each year.  We perform over three thousand procedures annually, including over a thousand coronary angioplasties each year.  This includes the use of a large variety of newer interventional devices in addition to standard balloon angioplasty, including stent, directional coronary atherectomy, rotational atherectomy, TEC atherectomy, and laser angioplasty. 

Despite the large proportion of high-risk patients that we routinely encounter, our procedural, in-hospital and long-term outcomes have remained consistently good and compare very favorably with all major international centers.  

Cath Lab Data: A History of Success

In 1999 alone, we performed 2,400 diagnostic angiographies and 970 interventions in our catheterization lab in downtown Phoenix.  Our Angioplasty (PTCA) Registry data for the year 1999 shows that the restenosis (recurrence of blockage) rate of angioplasty patients was 2.6% (i.e., only 25 of 970 patients came back with a recurrence of blockage at the site of successful angioplasty).  The number of patients presenting with restenosis, requiring bypass surgery was 0.8% (i.e., only 8 of 970 patients needed surgical revascularization, a benchmark statistic by any standard).  Our stent experience is equally favorable.  The subacute stent thrombosis rate was 0.4%.  At the end of one year, the number of successfully treated patients who had total event-free survival was 94.3%.  Additionally, our hospital length-of-stay for coronary interventions is one of the lowest in the country, even in patients with acute myocardial infarction or high-risk angioplasty (mean length of hospital stay: 2.29 days).

Primary Angioplasty In Acute Myocardial Infarction

The ACS Cath Lab is the first center in the Greater Phoenix area that is available round-the-clock, seven days a week.  It is staffed by well-trained, licensed and experienced technical personnel, and has a cardiologist on call at all times.  Because of this, we are able to offer our patients primary angioplasty in acute myocardial infarction.  This means that when a patient presents with a “heart attack”, we are equipped to do an urgent coronary angiogram and open the culprit vessel immediately, thus restoring flow to the affected area of heart muscle in a short amount of time.  This has been shown, in several major international trials, to be the most effective treatment for an acute “heart attack” today, since it minimizes the damage done to the heart muscle by the attack.  In 1999, of the 970 coronary interventions that we performed, nearly 23% were in the setting of an acute myocardial infarction.  The original scientific research stemming from our extensive cath lab interventional experience has been abstracted and presented at all major international cardiology scientific meetings in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Indian subcontinent.  (Please see “Research”)

The ACS Cath Lab has earned kudos from independent outside sources.  An NBC- affiliated television station reported that an independent agency graded hospitals based on their management of acute myocardial infarction and the number of deaths that occurred.  “Fourteen Arizona hospitals were rated.  Five stars is the best, 3 stars is average.  Only ACS’ Cath Lab at Phoenix Memorial Hospital got 5 stars*****.  All of the other hospitals got 3 (or less) stars.”

Interventional Cardiology Research

We are active participants in several path-breaking stent, device evaluation and pacemaker trials.  These trials are anticipated to define the future management of acute myocardial infarction and other acute coronary syndromes.  Based on the clinical outcome of these trials, the stents /devices receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for use in the general setting.  This means that our patients have the unique opportunity to benefit from state-of-the-art techniques and treatments now, which are otherwise not available to the average patient for several more years.  It also means “hands-on” experience for our physicians under a controlled setting, and familiarity with the advantages / disadvantages well ahead of the device being available for general use / prescription.

As participants in the U.S. National Angioplasty (PTCA) Registry under the auspices of the Society for Cardiac Angiography & Interventions, our interventional experience is part of the national pooled data that forms the benchmark for scientific analyses and recommendations.  

ACS is a participant in the New Approaches to Coronary Intervention (NACI) Registry, and Dr. Siegel, our Medical Director, is on the editorial board of the NACI Registry.  

We are a high-volume center for non-coronary stent and vascular interventions.  We have had excellent procedural and long-term success with: (a) stenting in blocked subclavian, femoral, carotid and renal arteries, and in occluded arteriovenous fistulas in patients on chronic hemodialysis; (b) coil-embolization techniques to treat coronary fistulae, arterial “steal” syndromes, and other anatomical anomalies; (c) the use of laser and new generation stents in the treatment of arterial blockages in the legs; and (d) additional sophisticated nonsurgical techniques.  

ACS Cath Lab Accreditation

• Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)

• AZ Department of Health Services Health Care Institution License OTC-651

• AZ Radiation Regulatory Agency Registration Certificate 7-M-5399

• Accredited with Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Arizona

• Medicare approved

• Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System Provider (AHCCS) approved

• Phoenix Area Indian Health Service approved

Who to contact 

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