Echo Testing An Overview
Echo Testing in Dayton, OH
Echo testing, also known as an echocardiogram, is an ultrasound test utilizing high-pitched waves of sound (echoes) that get transmitted through a device called a transducer. This device catches echoes of sound waves that bounce off the various parts of the heart. The sound waves convert to digital images of the heart.
Also, the pictures created show the heart’s chambers, valves, and walls that supply blood flow to the heart. An echo cannot harm you nor does it hurt you. Additionally, it has no side effects. The Buckeye Heart & Vascular Institute offers Echo testing and many other heart and vascular services to treat and diagnose cardiovascular disease.
Why Do Patients Need An Echo Test?
An echo test helps your doctor learn more about the heart’s structure:
- Chamber’s size, wall thickness, and contractility.
- The contractility of your heart.
- Your heart’s pumping strength.
- Regurgitation is blood leaking backward through your heart valves.
- Stenosis when the heart valves are too narrow.
- If there is a tumor or infectious growth around your heart valves.
An echo test will help your doctor determine:
- Problems with the outer lining of your heart, also known as the pericardium.
- Evaluate pulmonary artery pressures.
- Blood clots in the chambers of your heart.
- Abnormal holes between the chambers of the heart.