echocardiography

Examples of echocardiography in the following topics:

• Heart Failure

  • The condition is diagnosed with echocardiography and blood tests.
  • Echocardiography is commonly used to support a clinical diagnosis of heart failure.
  • Echocardiography may also aid in deciding what treatments will help the patient, such as medication, insertion of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or cardiac resynchronization therapy.

• Pericarditis

  • The diagnostic test for cardiac tamponade, is trans-esophageal echocardiography (TEE) although trans-thoracic echocardiography (TTE) can also be utilized in cases where there is a high suspicion of aortic dissection and high blood pressure, or in patients where esophageal probing is not feasible.

• Pulmonary Edema

  • In the case of cardiogenic pulmonary edema, urgent echocardiography may strengthen the diagnosis by demonstrating impaired left ventricular function, high central venous pressures, and high pulmonary artery pressures.

• Myocardial Ischemia and Infarction

  • Various forms of cardiac stress tests may be used to induce both symptoms and detect changes with electrocardiography (EKG), echocardiography (using ultrasound of the heart), or scintigraphy (using a radioactive marker to examine blood uptake by the heart muscle).