Cardiology

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease is the leading cause of death in the nation. Coronary heart disease, vascular disease and other cardiovascular conditions can pose serious threats to your well-being, so it’s important to understand their comprehensive risk factors, which can include:

• Aging
• Diabetes
• Family history
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Infections or injuries to the veins
• Lack of exercise
• Obesity
• Pregnancy
• Smoking
• Unhealthy diet
• Women who are postmenopausal

Managing heart disease starts with prioritizing preventative measures.

If your family lineage has a history of heart disease or if you’ve already been referred by your primary doctor to see a cardiologist, our heart specialists can provide you with essential preventative services.

First and foremost, however, proactively practicing self-care by adopting a healthy diet, controlling your weight and routinely exercising can also help reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease in the future.

Women and heart disease

According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women, responsible for one in three fatalities each year.

Our cardiologists work with the specialists in our women's care program to educate you on the risk factors of heart disease and provide steps to prevent or reduce your likelihood of heart attack or stroke.

Some symptoms of a heart attack can include:

• Breaking out in a cold sweat
• Discomfort in both arms or your back, jaw, neck or stomach
• Nausea or lightheadedness
• Periodic pain, pressure or a squeezing sensation in the center of your chest lasting more than a few minutes
• Shortness of breath

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, please call 911 immediately. Our teams can diagnose and clear blocked arteries before they become a problem.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing accurate diagnosis and early intervention, we may use one or more diagnostic tools to properly identify your existing condition.

Computerized tomography angiography (CTA)

CTA is a noninvasive exam that uses CT technology to look at the blood vessels throughout your body. It is used to evaluate abnormal narrowing or enlargement of blood vessels in the chest, abdomen, pelvis and extremities. For example, we may use a CTA to get real-time images of your aorta, which may aid in diagnosing you with an abdominal aortic aneurysm or aortic dissection. Our CTA techniques minimize radiation exposure while providing high-quality diagnostic images.

Echocardiography

Also known as a cardiac ultrasound, an echocardiogram uses sound waves to take pictures of your heart’s chambers, valves, walls and blood vessels. Echocardiography helps doctors see the functionality of the heart and its pumping strength, as well as any problems or abnormalities occurring inside your heart.

Event and Holter monitoring

These portable devices record the same information as an echocardiogram but can go with you while you go about your normal life. To record an event, an event monitor is triggered by you — the user — and can be used for a month or more. A Holter monitor is typically meant to record continuously for 24 to 48 hours. This collective data can help your physician see how your heart beats normally during routine activities.

Exercise stress testing

An exercise stress test helps you and your doctor know how well your heart handles physical activity.

It is often used to:

• Determine your safe level of exercise
• Diagnose CAD
• Monitor your current progress with CAD

Implantable loop recorder

An implantable loop recorder is a small device about the size of a USB stick. It is implanted under the skin during a minor procedure and used to record your heart rhythm for up to three years. This information is extremely valuable to our providers in determining your proper diagnosis and treatment.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and angiography

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive technique that uses magnetic resonance technology to look at the blood flow through your blood vessels. An angiogram uses X-rays and a special dye to take images of the arteries in your heart. These techniques can also be used to examine blood flow and areas of stress in your blood vessels, which can potentially lead to health problems in the future.

Vascular ultrasound

This noninvasive exam uses high-frequency sound waves to create images, visualizing blood vessels and detecting the rate of blood flow through them. Ultrasound imaging can detect blood clots and narrowed blood vessels throughout your body. It can also evaluate varicose veins and determine if you’re a candidate for endovenous (vein) ablation.

Other vascular tests we offer include:

• Abdominal aortic artery scan — Uses ultrasound technology to measure the size of your abdominal aorta
• Ankle-brachial index (ABI) — Measures the ratio between the pressure in your arms and legs, which shows how well blood is flowing to your lower extremities
• Carotid artery scan — A vascular imaging test that measures the amount of dangerous plaque in your carotid arteries and the blood flow speed within them

If you’re diagnosed with heart failure, CAD or a structural heart condition after participating in our thorough heart screening and testing process, there are several treatments we can use based on your results. Depending on the severity of your condition, one of those options may include medication to help your heart not work so hard, manage your cholesterol and prevent blood clots from forming.

However, you might need our specialists to perform a more advanced heart procedure to address certain cardiovascular conditions.

Care for heart failure

Our cardiologists offer compassionate care for heart failure. These surgical and medical device treatments include:

• Biventricular pacing
• Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT)
• Coronary bypass
• Heart valve repair or replacement
• Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs)
• Ventricular assist devices (VADs)

Interventional cardiology procedures

We can act quickly to clear your blocked arteries using one of our interventional cardiology procedures:

• Angioplasty — During this procedure, a balloon-tipped catheter is guided to the blockage in your coronary artery and inflated, pushing plaque against the arterial walls. A coronary stent may also be used to keep your artery from narrowing or closing again.
• Laser atherectomy — A laser atherectomy is an innovative procedure that involves inserting a catheter that emits a high-energy light, or laser, to vaporize the blockages in your artery.
• Mechanical atherectomy — This is a procedure where a sharp blade on the end of a catheter removes plaque from your blood vessel.

Structural heart care

Sometimes the heart develops structural abnormalities that occur while the baby is in utero or develop due to heart disease. These problems may include holes in the chambers of the heart, a thickening of the walls of the heart and valves that don't work well.

Usually, these conditions don't cause any problems, but, when they do, we offer many minimally invasive surgical procedures to fix the abnormalities.