Heart Attack

Healthcare providers usually diagnose heart attacks in an emergency room setting. If you have heart attack symptoms, you should undergo a physical examination. A provider will check your pulse, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure and listen to your heart and lung sounds. They’ll also ask you about the symptoms you experienced. They might ask someone who was with you to describe what happened.

What tests will be done to diagnose a heart attack?

A healthcare provider will diagnose a heart attack using the following:

• Blood tests: One of the most reliable ways to diagnose a heart attack is to check for cardiac troponin in your blood. During a heart attack, the damage to heart muscle cells always causes this chemical marker to appear in your bloodstream.
• Electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG): This is one of the first tests you get when you come to an ER with heart attack symptoms. Your heart’s electrical signals can help tell if an injury is occurring as well as if there are any rhythm abnormalities.
• Echocardiogram: Using ultrasound (high-frequency sound waves), an echocardiogram generates a picture of the inside and outside of your heart. It can show how well your heart is squeezing and how well the valves are working.
• Coronary angiogram or heart catheterization: This is a procedure that uses X-rays and contrast dye to show the blood vessels to your heart and can help determine if there are any blockages.
• Heart computed tomography (CT) scan: This creates a highly detailed scan of your heart and its blood vessels to show if there’s any significant narrowing or hardening of the major coronary arteries.
• Heart MRI (magnetic resonance imaging): This test uses a powerful magnetic field and computer processing to create an image of your heart. It can show problems with the blood flow in the arteries to your heart.
• Exercise stress test: This test can use an ECG, echocardiogram or nuclear scans while you’re physically active to help show if your heart is receiving enough blood flow.
• Nuclear heart scans: These scans use a radioactive dye a provider injects into your blood and computer-enhanced methods like computed tomography (CT) to find areas of your heart that aren’t receiving as much blood or are injured. These scans can be single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans or positron emission tomography (PET) scans.