5 Serious Problems (and 5 more) That a Stress Test Can Reveal

When you experience symptoms such as chest pain, palpitations, shortness of breath, and dizziness, your doctor may want you to take a stress test. This diagnostic procedure indicates how well your heart functions when it has to work harder than normal.

At Northwest Houston Heart Center, cardiologists Dr. A. Adnan Aslam and Dr. Roy Norman use stress tests to diagnose a number of different cardiac problems. In addition to the original exercise stress test, they perform nuclear testing along with positron emission tomography (PET) scans to diagnose disease in its earliest stages.

Here’s what the team wants you to know about stress tests and what they can reveal.

The basic exercise stress test

The stress test most people have is called an exercise stress test. The doctor has you walk on a treadmill or cycle on a stationary bike for a predetermined amount of time, ramping up the speed as you go.

As you work harder, your heart does, too, and the test reveals how your heart handles the extra stress of exercise.

And, as your body works harder, your heart has to pump more blood to meet its energy needs. The test can demonstrate if you have a lack of sufficient blood supply to the heart.

Exercise stress tests also help the doctor determine:

• If you have an arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)
• If your symptoms are related to your heart
• If you need other tests, like a coronary angiogram, to detect narrowed arteries
• How hard you should exercise at a cardiac rehab program or when you start an exercise program
• If treatments you’ve received for heart disease are working
• If you’re ready to exercise following a heart attack

If you’re unable to exercise, the doctor gives you a medication that speeds up your heart rate, just as if you were exercising.

Throughout the test, the doctor measures your heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, the heart’s electrical activity, and the fatigue you feel from the exertion. These give him valuable insights into how your heart is working and managing or not managing its tasks.

Stress testing helps diagnose these five serious problems:

1. Heart failure
2. Coronary artery disease (blocked arteries)
3. Heart arrhythmias
4. Heart valve disease
5. Cardiomyopathy (problems with the heart muscle tissue)

It also helps determine the other conditions mentioned above.

The nuclear stress test

A nuclear stress test is a slightly different procedure than the exercise stress test. It combines the exercise test with a cardiac PET (positron emission tomography) scan. You get two scans, one right after your test to get an image of your heart when it’s hard at work.

The second scan is performed at another time when your heart is at its normal resting rate. By comparing the two images, your doctor gets vital information about your heart’s function.

The cardiac PET scan

With a cardiac PET scan, the doctor injects a radioactive substance (radiotracer) into your bloodstream. The tracers attach to blood cells and are carried onward to your heart. The PET scan detects the energy released by the tracers and uses it to create an image of your heart in motion.

The cardiac PET scan highlights how blood flows into your heart muscles in dramatic detail. These images can reveal five other serious problems:

1. Damaged muscles that need immediate treatment
2. Specific areas that don’t get enough blood
3. Blocked arteries (coronary artery disease)
4. Scarred heart tissue from a heart attack
5. Your risk of having a heart attack

The nuclear stress testing/cardiac PET scan is more accurate than the regular exercise stress test or standard nuclear stress tests because the latter use only single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans, which don’t provide as much detail.

Northwest Houston Heart Center is one of only a few places in the Houston area that has a dedicated cardiac PET scanner, making it easier for us to obtain the information we need to diagnose and treat you effectively.

If you’re showing any potential signs of heart problems, it’s time to come into Northwest Houston Heart Center for a cardiac evaluation, including stress testing. Call us at any of our locations — in Tomball, Cypress, Magnolia, or The Woodlands, Texas — today,  or book online. You can also text us at 832-402-9518.