One of the best ways to prevent a heart attack is through early diagnosis and treatment of heart conditions. To this end, we perform in-office cardiac stress tests to aid in finding heart conditions and assessing your risk of a heart attack. You will be in great hands with our professional technicians and physicians who are trained to interpret the test results and perform appropriate interventions if they are needed.
What is a cardiac stress test?
Cardiac stress tests are diagnostic tools used to measure your risk of having a heart attack, or myocardial infarction. Typically, blood flow through the coronary arteries is adequate when the heart is at rest, even when there are partially blocked vessels. When the heart is under stress, however, blood flow is significantly reduced. By studying your heart both at rest and during exercise, we can gain a clear picture of blood flow through the coronary arteries.
What is a cardiac stress test used for?
Cardiac stress tests are very useful for evaluating your heart’s ability to function properly under stress, which occurs during physical exertion such as exercise. They help cardiologists in the prediction, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease. Cardiac stress tests can:
- Evaluate and determine the functional capacity of your heart
- Separate living (viable) tissue from irreversibly damaged or scarred (non-viable) tissue
- Identify areas of abnormal blood flow through the coronary arteries (myocardial perfusion)
- Determine your risk of coronary artery disease, which causes heart attacks
- Establish the functioning capacity of the heart
- Measure blood flow (hemodynamic) responses to exercise
- Detect occurrences of exercise-induced irregular or abnormal heartbeats (arrhythmias)
- Diagnose heart disease
- Evaluate the severity of a heart condition
- Identify an area that does not receive adequate blood flow (ischemia)
- Guide treatment plans