Cardiology Onsite offers a full range of diagnostic testing for heart conditions. Our office is equiped with the latest diagnostic equipment operated by highly skilled technicians who will guide you through your test and ensure that you are comfortable and informed through every stage of your test.
Resting Electrocardiogram (EKG)
Treadmill Test (Exercise Stress Test)
Holter Monitor and Event Monitor
An EKG is a record of the electrical activity of the heart. It is a simple test that involves no special preparation and does not cause discomfort.
During this test, electrodes are placed on each arm and leg and at 6 points on your chest. The EKG shows the rate and rhythm of your heartbeat as well as the strength of electrical signals as they travel through the heart.
Abnormalities in an EKG help in diagnosing conditions such as heart attack, heart failure, and arrhythmias (irregular heart beats), and coronary artery disease. Because of its simplicity, the EKG is often the first line of testing your cardiologist uses when diagnosing a heart problem. Abnormal results may require additional testing for further diagnosis. Sometimes additional testing may be required because the EKG looks normal but you are still having symptoms.
The treadmill test is basically an EKG while you are walking on a treadmill. During physical activity or at times of stress your heart requires more blood flow. Narrowed heart arteries may provide enough blood for your heart at rest but not when exercising. EKG changes may only appear when the heart’s demands for additional circulation are increased such as during controlled exercise on a treadmill.
A treadmill test is usually performed to detect significant coronary artery disease and is often used as part of the evaluation of patients with chest pain and arrhythmias (irregular heart beats). It also provides assessment of your exercise capacity, circulation to the legs, and blood pressure response to exercise.
For more detailed information about the blood supply to your heart during activity, its structure, and how well it is functioning, your cardiologist may want you to have a nuclear stress test. Using a very small amount of radioactive tracer injected before exercising, a special scanner or camera creates an image of your heart showing how well blood is flowing to your heart muscles.
Images may be taken before you exercise, immediately after exercise and again after you have rested. The exercise portion of the test takes about 7 -12 minutes but your entire appointment may take 2-3 hours so that enough time is available between images for the tracer to flow through the heart muscle.
A MUGA or Multi Gated Acquisition Scan tests the pumping function of the muscular chambers of ventricles of your heart heart. During this test, tiny amounts of a radioactive substance called a tracer are injected into a vein in your arm. The tracer emits very week rays that can be measured with a special gamma camera. As the tracer travels thought the heart, the camera creates a large number of images that form a movie of blood flow as it is pumped from the heart.
The MUGA scan gives your cardiologist how much blood the heart ejects with each beat (ejection fraction) and how quickly the blood is ejected. Using this information your cardiologist can select or adjust medications to help treat poor heart function as well as seeing areas of your heart that may be damaged and not be working properly.
This is a simple office test that uses ultrasound to image the heart (image is formed by bouncing sound waves off the heart). It is painless and entirely non-invasive. This test provides a detailed analysis of the structure and function of the heart. The information provided includes: size and thickness of the walls of the heart, the strength of the heart muscle as a pump (extremely important after a heart attack), congenital anomalies of the heart, detailed assessment of the heart valves for narrowing or leakage, blood flow and presence of tumors or clots. In essence an echocardiogram provides vital information that is necessary in most patients with known heart disease or patients with symptoms that suggest it.
A Holter monitor is like a small wearable EKG machine that records your heart rhythm while you go about your normal activities. Because you wear the Holter monitor for one to three days, some problems such as intermittent irregular heartbeats that cannot be seen on a normal EKG, are recorded.
The Holter monitor electrodes are attached to your chest with adhesive. The recording device can be worn around your neck or clipped to your belt. The Holter monitor does not generate electricity so there is no danger of electric shock while you are wearing it. The only changes you make to your normal routine while wearing the Holter monitor is that you cannot take a shower or bath.
Your cardiologist may give you a diary to record the time and sensation of any symptoms that you feel while wearing the monitor. Later, your cardiologist can look at the recording around the time of your symptoms to see your heart's activity.
An event monitor is similar to a Holter monitor except is usually worn for a longer period and does not record continuously. Instead, the event recorder is activated by pressing a button whenever the patient experiences the symptoms of interest. The event recorder then records heart activity for a short period before the button is pressed until the symptoms have resolved. The recording is then sent to the cardiology office using a telephone.
Because the electrodes of and event recorder can be attached quickly, you can remove them to engage in activities such as showering or bathing.