Heart Disease Heart disease is the biggest health risk Americans face today. If you don’t have heart disease now, you can help prevent it. If you’ve already been diagnosed with heart disease, you can keep it from getting worse. Here are the tools to get you started.

Heart Disease Risk Factors Clinical Wizard One of the ways you can help prevent heart disease is by knowing your risk factors.

Cardiac and Chest Pain Services

The cardiac team of professionals, Dr. Carlos Garcia, cardiologist along with nuclear medicine technologists, radiology technicians, and respiratory therapists provide extensive cardiac care and chest pain services. These professionals provide a variety of outpatient diagnostic procedures to evaluate our patients’ cardiac and overall health. At LV Stabler, our cardiac patients’ are evaluated by using the diagnostic tools below.

• Echocardiogram is an ultrasound procedure of the heart. The procedure involves the placement of three EKG leads on the patient’s chest. The ultrasound technician applies a small amount of gel on a transducer, which is placed on the patient’s chest. The procedure is videotaped for the physician's review. The physician will look at how well the heart contracts to squeeze the blood from the heart. He assesses how well the heart valves open and close, reviews the motion of the artery walls and looks for fluid or tumors surrounding the heart.
   
• Stress Testing is one of the simplest and fastest procedures to evaluate the heart. LV Stabler uses the GXT is a procedure, which the physician utilizes to help diagnose possible cardiac problems. The patient is connected to a cardiac monitor which, the physician watches closely throughout the GXT procedure for any changes or abnormalities. The patient begins to do an activity, which causes the heart to work hard (usually walking on a treadmill). The physician gradually increases the level of the activity until the patient reaches a target heart rate. Throughout the entire procedure the cardiac rhythm is monitored and an EKG is printed. The physician analyzes all of the information acquired, which help in determining if there are any cardiac problems and if further tests are warranted.
   
• Myocardial Perfusion Scan is a nuclear scan given while the patient is exercising that may reveal areas of the heart muscle that are not getting enough blood. Nuclear medicine gated SPECT myocardial perfusion scanning requires an IV to be started and secured in a patient’s arm prior to the procedure. The patient is connected to an EKG machine and is then instructed to walk on a treadmill. One minute before the patient is asked to stop walking on the treadmill he or she is injected through the IV with a tracer dose of radioactive material that tags with the myocardium of the heart. After the patient is finished exercising, the connections for the EKG machine are removed and the IV is discontinued. At this point, patients are allowed to leave the facility to eat a meal.
   
  The patients return for the stress scan portion of the procedure. The patient is instructed to lie on a narrow table with his or her left arm over the head. A special imaging device rotates around the chest scanning pictures of the heart. This takes approximately 30 minutes. The physician or the radiologist will review the scans for ischemic areas or areas of infarction. Images are also gated to assess the left ventricular function of the heart.

At LVS, we pride ourselves for the special care that is rendered to our cardiac patients. For more information about cardiology services, call 334-383-2321 or send a message through our Contact Us section.