Hypoxia and Medicine

what is an echocardiogram and should you have one if you have ischemia?

Public Comments

1. Simple answer to your question: An echocardiogram is basically an ultrasound of the heart, and it can asses things like blood velocity, blood leakage, or non-functioning cardiac valves. And yes you should have one if you suffer from ischemia (inadequate blood supply to a specific organ), since it could be a feature of heart disease. Many factors could cause it, like blood clots and tumors, and you'd want to rule out heart issues (ex-low blood pressure)
2. Echocardiography is used to diagnose certain cardiovascular diseases. In fact, it is one of the most widely used diagnostic tests for heart disease. It can provide a wealth of helpful information, including the size and shape of the heart, its pumping strength, and the location and extent of any damage to its tissues. It is especially useful for assessing diseases of the heart valves. It not only allows doctors to evaluate the heart valves, but it can detect abnormalities in the pattern of blood flow, such as the backward flow of blood through partly closed heart valves, known as regurgitation. By assessing the motion of the heart wall, echocardiography can help detect the presence and assess the severity of coronary artery disease, as well as help determine whether any chest pain is related to heart disease. Echocardiography can also help detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in which the walls of the heart thicken in an attempt to compensate for heart muscle weakness. The biggest advantage to echocardiography is that it is noninvasive (doesn't involve breaking the skin or entering body cavities) and has no known risks or side effects.(Wikipedia) Echocardiography uses ultrasound waves to produce an image of the heart and great vessels. It helps assess heart wall thickness (eg, in hypertrophy or atrophy) and motion and provides information about ischemia and infarction. It can be used to assess diastolic filling patterns of the left ventricle, which can help in the diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy, hypertrophic or restrictive cardiomyopathy, severe heart failure, constrictive pericarditis, and severe aortic regurgitation.(Merck) Please see the web pages for more details on Echocardiography.
3. an echocardiogram is a ultrsound of the heart if that what you doctor says Initial evaluation of chest-pain patients involves a 12 lead electrocardiogram (ECG) and cardiac markers such as troponins. These tests are highly specific but very insensitive and often leave the requirement for further testing to achieve an accurate diagnosis. Magnetocardiography (MCG) imaging utilises superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) to detect the weak magnetic fields generated by the heart's electrical fields. There is a direct correlation between abnormal cardiac depolarisation or repolarisation and abnormality in the magnetic field map. In July 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the CardioMag Imaging MCG as a safe device for the non-invasive detection of ischemia.
4. This is a process where sound is echoed from an organ or tissue of sufficient density to create an echo. Is one of the diagnostic tools for ischemia.
5. No need to add more... ..Enough for you has been already discussed and said.
6. an echo scan can show up any specific areas of the heart that are ischaemic ie not getting the blood + oxygen they need. this can be useful so that the doctors can be aware of what potential problems you might encounter in the future. different parts of the heart encounter different problems if they become ischaemic for example if they see that the part of your heart that pumps the blood round the body is weakened by the ischaemia then they will be able to advise you to look out for fluid retention and breathlessness.