Diagnosis and Screening for Cardiovascular Conditions
Overview
When a patient complains of symptoms that may suggest a heart or blood vessel problem—such as shortness of breath, chest pain, chest pressure, heart palpitations, dizziness, sweating, numbness and weakness—the health care team will run a variety of tests to diagnose and screen for cardiovascular conditions. Usually, diagnosing a heart problem requires a combination of blood tests, heart monitoring and imaging tests.
Cardiovascular diagnostic and screening tests can provide a wealth of information about the electrical activity of the heart, heartbeat rhythm, how well blood is pumping through the heart’s chambers and valves, how easily blood is flowing through the coronary arteries to the heart muscle, and whether there are tumors or abnormalities in the structure of the cardiovascular system.
Some tests can even record heart activity to give doctors important details about whether activities like exercise or lying down may be contributing factors to symptoms.
Cardiovascular diagnostic and screening tests can provide a wealth of information about the electrical activity of the heart, heartbeat rhythm, how well blood is pumping through the heart’s chambers and valves, how easily blood is flowing through the coronary arteries to the heart muscle, and whether there are tumors or abnormalities in the structure of the cardiovascular system.
Some tests can even record heart activity to give doctors important details about whether activities like exercise or lying down may be contributing factors to symptoms.
Treatments, Tests and Therapies
- Types of Cardiac Imaging: What You Need to Know
- Angiogram
- Right Heart Catheterization with Heart Tissue Biopsy
- Right Heart Catheterization
- Echocardiogram
- Dobutamine Stress Echocardiogram
- Electrocardiogram
- Exercise Echocardiogram
- Myocardial Perfusion Scan, Resting
- Carotid Artery Duplex Scan
- Myocardial Perfusion Scan, Stress
- Holter Monitor
- Cardiac Catheterization See More
