Heart Artery Disease

• Introduction
• Chest pain
  • Angina
  • Other chest pain
• Heart attack (myocardial infarction)
  • Introduction
• Assessment of the heart arteries
  • Treadmill stress test
  • Stress echocardiogram
  • Stress nuclear studies
  • Angiogram- invasive
  • Angiogram- CT
• Treatment of heart artery disease
  • Medication
  • Stent treatment
  • Heart bypass surgery

Myocardial Infarction
(Heart Attack)

If the blood supply to the heart muscle is compromised for a prolonged period then the heart muscle can be damaged. This is referred to as a myocardial infarction or, in lay terms, a heart attack.

The damaged heart muscle is repaired by scar tissue. New blood tests can now detect very minor heart attacks that do not significantly affect the overall function of the heart muscle.

Complete blockage of large heart artery (due to formation of a clot on a plaque) can result in large heart attack.

A number of medications are very useful in those that have had a large heart attack. It is important to try to assess the size of any heart attack that a person may have had. This will enable treatment with the correct medication.

The ECG or electrocardiogram can detect large heart attacks, but at times can be misleading. The heart can be scanned with an ultrasound machine to obtain an echocardiogram- this provides an accurate assessment of the heart's function. A number of other methods can also assess the function of the heart.