CARDIOLOGY

Non-invasive diagnostic methods yield valuable information about the structure and functions of your heart. Some of these techniques are electrocardiography (ECG), exercise ECG test, Holter monitoring and color Doppler echocardiography.

ECG (Electrocardiography):

Electrocardiograph is used in the procedure to store the electrical capacity, formed by the heart tissue, using electrodes which are placed on the arms, legs and the chest. Using ECG, rhytm and conduction abnormalities of the heart can be determined, coronary insufficiency or infarct can be diagnosed, thickening of the walls of the heart or widening of the heart cavities can be detected, the functions of the cardiac pacemaker can be evaluated, impacts of some cardiac drugs, electrolyte imbalance (especially changes in serum potassium level), the impact of noncardiac diseases over the heart can be explored.

Treadmill Excercise Test:

Some ECG changes, which can not be seen while resting, can prompt up when the heart rate increases while excercising. The person, who will perform the test, walks and runs over a moving platform, the speed and slope of which can be set according to a particular protocol. Before, during and after the test, ECG’s are recorded and blood pressure is measured at appropriate intervals. Excercise test is performed to see if the chest pain is due to coronar insufficiency, to search for silent coronar insufficiency in patients without chest pain, to determine the excercise capacity or the safe excercise level, the response of the heart rate and blood pressure to excercise and the arrythmias occuring during excercise and to evaluate the therapy results. It is a method which is used frequently to assess the patients having coronary artery disease risk factors and to follow the patients that have coronary artery insufficiency, that had myocardial infarction, coronary by-pass operation or balloon angioplasty and stent implantation.

Holter’s Monitor ECG:

A light and compact device carried by the patient using a belt which is placed aroud the waist, takes ECG recordings for 24 hours. The patient records on a patient’s diary his/her all daily activities like walking, running, driving a car in the traffic, working, eating and having sex, the time when he/she goes to sleep and to wakes up, his/her complaints like fainting, palpitations, chest pain. The Holter records are analysed to see if an electrocardiographic abnormality occured and if it did, the relationship of this abnormality with the complaints of the patient and his/her daily activities is searched. Additionally, the results of drug therapy, the cardiac pacemaker or the results of other interventions performed against arrythmias, the results of coronary-by-pass operation and balloon angioplasty/stent are evaluated. It is an important method to follow the patients who have coronary insufficiency or who had infarction. Holter ECG is safe for the patients with high risk or who are handicapped and for that reason cannot tolerate treadmill excercise test. The improvements in the computer technology in recent years have increased the diagnostic value of the Holter ECG.

By following the technological and scientific developments closely, Duzen Laboratory Group has taken it as an aim and a principal, to improve its service quality.

Echocardiography:

Rapid technological improvements, development of devices with high image quality, spectral Doppler and color flow Doppler techniques enabled echocardiography as a superior and preferential diagnosis method for many cardiac diseases. Echocardiographic examination is performed without any risks for the patient, using ultrasonic sound waves. It is possible to determine the dimensions of the heart, to measure the wall thicknesses and to evaluate the contractility of the heart. The septums which seperate the heart cavities, the vessels originating from the heart, the tumours of the heart, any liquid summation between the membranes covering the heart can also be viewed using echocardiography. It is also possible to determine valvular stenosis or insufficiency and to evaluate other abnormalities and the status of prostetic valves and to measure the flow rates and pressures of the heart.

Monitoring Ambulatory Blood Pressure:

A monitor carried in a belt fastened to patient’s waist measures the blood pressure compressing a muff every 15-30 min during the day and every 30-60 min during the night and stores the results. The device eliminates the wrong measurements and calculates the averages for the day and night measurements, which are suitable for evaluation. The data stored in the memory of the device after 24 hours of recording are then evaluated. Some patients get excited when they go to the hospital or doctor’s office and their blood pressure may be found high. This situation, which is called ”white coat hypertension”, may lead to wrong hypertension diagnosis and sometimes it may lead to wrong or dangerous therapies for the patient. Therefore, in order to eliminate the possibility of white coat hypertension, ambulatory blood pressure measuring should be applied to the patients, who don’t have diseases in their organs such as heart, kidney, eye or brain to cause hypertension, but whose blood pressures are measured high. This method is also useful for the patients who have hypertension, that is resistant to antihypertensive drugs, or the patients, whose blood pressures are decreased even below the normal values due to antihypertensive drugs, or the patients, whose blood pressure is high with episodes or whose blood pressure is to be evaluated while sleeping.