According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart failure affects roughly 6.2 million Americans and claims approximately 659,000 lives every year.
Echocardiography – a noninvasive diagnostic tool that uses high-frequency sound waves to obtain valuable information about the heart’s function and structures – provides a cornerstone for the detection and effective management of heart failure. Echocardiography boasts remarkable specificity (88 percent), sensitivity (80 percent), and accuracy (86 percent), which make it an indispensable tool in lowering HF-related mortality.
The information below can give you a better insight into such life-saving role of echocardiography.
Detects Problems with Your Heart’s Pumping Strength
When you have heart failure, your heart struggles to pump enough blood to get your body working as it should. This results in dizziness, fainting, weakness, fatigue, and other symptoms.
An echocardiogram (short for echocardiography exam) yields information that your cardiologist (heart doctor) uses to assess your heart’s pumping strength. An echocardiogram estimates ejection fraction, which is the percentage of blood being pumped out of a filled ventricle with every heartbeat; as well as cardiac output, which is the product of your heart rate per minute and the volume of blood pumped with every beat (stroke volume). Ventricles are the lower chambers of your heart that send blood out into your circulatory system.
Helps Your Heart Doctor Determine the Best Course of Action
With the results of an echocardiogram, your cardiologist can determine whether you need other tests, such as EKG (electrocardiogram), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), chest X-ray, and/or coronary angiogram (cardiac catheterization) to confirm or rule out heart failure. This is crucial especially since the symptoms of HF can overlap those of other medical conditions.
Coronary angiogram involves your heart doctor putting a thin, flexible, hollow tube known as a catheter into your blood vessel in your arm, groin, or neck then threading it through your aorta and into your heart. Your doctor may use a contrast dye during the procedure to clearly see how well your heart is pumping blood.
Once a diagnosis is confirmed, your heart doctor will devise an appropriate treatment plan to delay its progression. The type of treatment you need will depend on the severity of your heart failure, with stage D or class IV requiring advanced care (i.e., surgical intervention).
Echocardiogram in Irmo, SC
At SC Internal Medicine Associates & Rehabilitation, echocardiograms belong to the vast range of diagnostic services we offer as part of our goal to provide the men and women in Irmo, South Carolina and all of its neighboring places with convenient, comprehensive, and efficient health care.
To schedule your echocardiogram appointment or to book a visit with one of our internal medicine physicians, call us today at (803) 749-1111 or use our convenient form.
