Diagnosing and Treating Heart Conditions
South Texas Health System Heart offers a range of diagnostic tools to assess and monitor heart conditions. Besides performing a physical exam, a doctor can use various tests to detect and evaluate heart disease.
Non-Invasive Cardiac Testing
Our laboratory is equipped with noninvasive tools to help diagnose cardiac disorders, and provide doctors with information about heart valves, heart muscle and coronary arteries. Non-invasive cardiac diagnostics can also detect congenital heart abnormalities. Exercise testing tools include:
- Treadmill stress testing
- Pharmacologic nuclear perfusion scans
- Exercise nuclear perfusion scans
- Exercise echocardiograms
Learn about graded exercise stress tests at South Texas Health System Heart
Echocardiography Includes:
- Dobutamine echocardiograms
- Exercise nuclear scans
Cardiac Catheterization for Diagnosis and Treatment
Cardiac catheterization is used to diagnose and determine heart disease, and to carry out heart treatment procedures that involve biopsies, shunts and stents. Interventional tools such as balloons and stents are fed through a catheter into the coronary arteries to correct abnormal narrowing of arteries and improve blood flow.
Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization Procedures Include:
- Cardiac hemodynamic measurement
- Coronary angiography
- Endomyocardial biopsy
Interventional Catheterization Procedures Include:
- Balloon angioplasty
- Atherectomy
- Coronary or peripheral stenting
- Intracoronary thrombolysis
- Primary angioplasty for acute heart attack patients
Atherectomy is a surgery technique used to remove plaque from a blood vessel.
Diagnosing and Treating Cardiac Arrhythmia
The electrophysiology lab provides diagnostic and treatment options for people with heart rhythm disturbances. Our team of electrophysiologists provide in-hospital and by-appointment diagnostic electrophysiological testing.
Diagnostics include:
- 24- to 48-hour ambulatory Holter ECG monitoring
- Signal average electrocardiograms
- Tilt table testing
Learn about 24-Hour Holter Monitoring at South Texas Health System Heart
Treatments for Cardiac Arrhythmia Include:
- Catheter ablation of ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias
- Pacemaker implantation
- Nonthoracotomy placement of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator devices
- Antiarrhythmic drug therapy