Diagnosis and Screening for Cardiovascular Conditions

When a patient complains of symptoms that may suggest a heart or blood vessel problem—such as shortness of breath, chest pain, chest pressure, heart palpitations, dizziness, sweating, numbness, and weakness—the health care team will run a variety of tests to diagnose and screen for cardiovascular conditions. Usually, diagnosing a heart problem requires a combination of blood tests, heart monitoring, and imaging tests.

Cardiovascular diagnostic and screening tests can provide a wealth of information about the electrical activity of the heart, heartbeat rhythm, how well blood is pumping through the heart’s chambers and valves, how easily blood is flowing through the coronary arteries to the heart muscle, and whether there are tumors or abnormalities in the structure of the cardiovascular system.

Some tests can even record heart activity to give doctors important details about whether activities like exercise or lying down may be contributing factors to symptoms.