Noninvasive Cardiology

Non-Invasive Methods for Accurately Diagnosing Heart Disease

Early diagnosis and expert treatment are essential to being able to live a productive life. At The Bradenton Cardiology Center, we can detect heart disease with several tests that do not cause discomfort and are not complicated.

Tests are performed by highly trained technicians and nurses. We performs thousands of these studies each year on inpatients and outpatients, utilizing the latest technological advances available. These tests are interpreted by board certified cardiologists.

Our non-invasive cardiovascular diagnostic testing laboratories utilize a wide array of tests to help detect heart disease. These include transthoracic echocardiography (ultrasound), transesophageal echocardiography, stress tests, stress echocardiography testing, dobutamine stress studies, nuclear stress studies (In conjunction with the division of nuclear radiology) and CT angiography.

CT Lab

Bradenton Cardiology Center offers the latest in technology for non-invasive imaging of coronary, pulmonary and all peripheral vessels. Multi-detector CT scanning is one of the most significant advancements in the field of medical imaging within the last several years. The Toshiba Aquilon 64 slice CT provides outstanding images in a very short acquisition time keeping intravenous contrast utilization to a minimum and maximizing patient comfort. Assessing the severity of vascular obstruction is reliable and compares favorably with more invasive techniques. Coronary calcium scores are obtainable in even less time and without the use of contrast. Our physicians are specially trained to interpret the images and thereby recommend and provide the most effective therapy. Using this outpatient/office setting improves efficiency and ease of scheduling. We are happy to offer this service to our patients and to our referring physicians.

Echocardiography

Cardiac size and function can be evaluated through the use of echocardiogram. Intracardiac valves can be reliably evaluated and severity of abnormalities assessed. Our labs are staffed by the most experienced technologists.

Vascular Ultrasound

We have the ability to screen for carotid and peripheral artery disease using Doppler ultra sound. Potentially fatal abdominal aortic aneurysms are easily identified within a few minutes using this technique. Calf and thigh muscle pain can many times be caused by arterial disease that can be found with ultrasound or a segmental blood pressure study. These studies do not require an IV nor an injection.