• Skip to main content

Colorado Heart & Vascular

  • Providers
    • Physicians
    • Advanced Practice Providers
  • Patients
    • Request an Appointment
    • Patient Forms
    • Patient Education
      • Helpful Links
      • Atrial Fibrillation (AFib)
      • Diagram of Your Heart
    • Billing & Insurance
    • Non-Discrimination Information
  • Office Services
  • Hospital Services
  • Research
  • News
  • Contact
    • Contact Us
    • Request an Appointment
    • Locations
    • Referring Physicians
    • Employment Opportunities

Echocardiogram

An echocardiogram is a test that uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart. The picture is much more detailed than a plain x-ray image and involves no radiation exposure.

How the Test is Performed

A trained sonographer performs the test, then your heart doctor interprets the results. An instrument called a transducer that transmits high-frequency sound waves is placed on your ribs near the breast bone and directed toward the heart.

Additional images will be taken underneath and slightly to the left of your nipple (at the apex of your heart). The transducer picks up the echoes of the sound waves and transmits them as electrical impulses. The echocardiography machine converts these impulses into moving pictures of the heart. The Doppler probe records the motion of the blood through the heart.

An echocardiogram allows doctors to see the heart beating, and to see many of the structures of the heart. Occasionally, your lungs, ribs, or body tissue may prevent the sound waves and echoes from providing a clear picture of heart function. If so, the sonographer may inject a small amount of liquid (contrast) through an IV to better see the inside of the heart.

Very rarely, more invasive testing using special echocardiography probes may be necessary.

  • Providers
  • Patients
  • Office Services
  • Hospital Services
  • Research
  • News
  • Contact

Copyright © 2023 Colorado Heart & Vascular | Genesis Website by Wickam Group, LLC

WE ARE MOVING

CHV Lakewood is Moving!!

Our Lakewood office will be moving locations at the end of February. Our new address will be 770 Simms St in Golden, just down the road from our current office location. We will be working to contact patients who are scheduled during the move timeframe to either confirm your appointment location or reschedule if necessary.