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

Stress Echocardiogram

An echocardiogram is obtained by scanning the heart using sound waves. The heart valves and the chambers of the heart can be assessed.

The heart can be scanned before and immediately after walking on the treadmill. This test is particularly helpful when one can not rely on the ECG recordings. On occasions, the standard treadmill test may show ECG abnormalities that are likely to be a false result- a stress echocrdiogram can be useful as a further test in this situation.

When a person is not able to walk on the treadmill (eg due to hip pain) then the stress echocardiogram can be performed while medication to stimulate the heart is given into a vein. The medication causes the heart to beat faster and more forcefully- the echocardiogram is performed to assess the ability of the heart muscle to respond to this stress. When significant disease is present of the heart arteries, the heart muscle may not respond as expected and this observation is used as an indication for even further testing.

A normal stress echocardiogram has been shown to indicate a very favourable outlook.