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The video clip on the left was obtained in the cardiac cath lab as the left coronary angiogram was recorded in the LAO/cranial projection. The movie clip demonstrate both a "video" representation (coronary angios, as they appear on playback in the cath lab) and the "cine" or cineangiographic equivalent as seen on the developed film. The two views correspond to the negative and positive prints of photography film. You can toggle back and forth between the two views by clicking on the respective button. You can also click a button to see a labeled freeze frame of the coronary angiogram.
 
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     In the LAO-Cranial view, the LAD begins close to the spine and then moves away from it and towards the left ventricular apex. 
  The diagonal (Dx) moves medially away from the LAD. The septal perforators (SP) are smaller branches that come off the inferior border of the LAD (at nearly a right-angle) and travel downwards and to your left. The Dx coronary artery comes off the LAD and moves diagonally downwards and to your right.
  The Cx, in the RAO-cranial view, moves away from the LAD and towards the spine before giving off its branches that curve downwards and inferiorly running roughly parallel to the LAD.
   In the Left Anterior  Oblique or LAO view, the Image Intensifier(II)/camera assembly is rotated along a vertical axis towards the patient's left and head-wards (or cranially), as shown on the left (above). The picture on the left (above) shows the view of the heart as seen by the II in this projection. Once again, the size of the heart has been purposely exaggerated for purposes of illustration. Please remember that the ventricular septum lies in a plane between the right shoulder and the left nipple. Thus, in the LAO view, the camera "looks down the barrel" of the left ventricle with the septum lying anterior and away from the spine (running in the plane between the left scapula and the right nipple). Since the left anterior descending runs in the anterior inter-ventricular groove, the LAD swings away from the spine.
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