Your healthcare team will arrange tests or procedures to find out what happened to your heart. The results will help to determine the best treatment for you.
These differ for everyone and are based on your personal situation, heart condition, symptoms, risk factors and medical history.
Ask your doctor for information about any test you’re having, so you understand why you’re having it, and what's involved during and after the test.
To help diagnose high blood pressure, your doctor may ask you to measure and record your own blood pressure. You can do this via a validated blood pressure monitor at home. If your doctor would like you to measure your blood pressure over the day, they may ask you to wear a light, easy-to-wear monitor for 24 hours. This will help your doctor get accurate information about your blood pressure and how it changes across the day.
Some of the most common blood tests to assess heart conditions include:
Chest X-rays are pictures of the organs inside your chest, like your heart, lungs and blood vessels. Your doctor may order a chest X-ray to help find the cause of any symptoms you might have, like shortness of breath or chest pain.
Sometimes called ‘cardiac catheterisation’, a coronary angiogram may be done during or after a heart attack or angina episode. A small tube called a catheter is put into an artery in your groin, arm or wrist under local anaesthetic. The catheter is moved up inside the artery until it reaches your heart. You will not feel any pain during this procedure.
A special dye is injected into your coronary arteries and an X-ray is taken. It may make you feel hot and flushed for a few seconds. The X-ray shows your doctor where and how much your coronary arteries are narrowed. It also shows how well your heart is pumping.
This is a type of CT (computed tomography) scan that gives a three-dimensional (3D) image of the heart chambers and coronary arteries supplying blood to the heart. It is a non-invasive test for people who may be experiencing unusual heart-related symptoms and can help diagnose coronary heart disease. People undergoing CTCA are injected with a special dye that makes abnormalities like plaque build-up more visible.
An echocardiogram (or echo) is an ultrasound of the heart to look at the heart’s valves and chambers and to see if it is pumping as it should. This type of ultrasound uses a probe either on your chest or sometimes can be done down your oesophagus (food pipe) to get more accurate pictures of your heart.
An echocardiogram can also be performed before, during and after exercise to see how well the heart functions under stress. This is called a stress echocardiogram or stress echo. Learn more about stress tests below.
An ECG reads your heart's electrical impulses. Small sticky dots and wire leads are put on your chest, arms and legs. The leads are attached to an ECG machine, which records the electrical impulses and prints them out on paper. Your doctor may use an ECG to diagnose a heart attack or abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias).
Electrophysiology studies use a computer to help diagnose electrical problems in the heart, which can cause abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias).
Special tubes (catheters) are inserted, via a vein in your leg, into your heart. The catheters record your heart's electrical activity and test its response to various stimuli. Your heart's electrical response to these stimuli helps doctors to determine the type and cause of your abnormal heart rhythm.
An MRI uses magnets and radio waves to create detailed, still or moving, images of your heart on a computer.
Sometimes a special dye is used to make parts of the heart and coronary arteries easier to see. It does not involve radiation.
This test shows your doctor the structure of your heart and how well it is working.
Stress tests help your doctor find out how well your heart works when you're physically active, using exercise machines (e.g. a treadmill or stationary bike). For people who are unable to exercise, stress tests can be performed using a medicine that mimics the effect of exercise on the heart.
An exercise stress test is an electrocardiogram (ECG) done while you exercise. The doctor checks your heart rate, heart rhythm and blood pressure. The test will show how your heart works during exercise. Sometimes it’s called a treadmill test.
An echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) performed before, during and after exercise to see how well the heart functions under stress, including how it pumps and how well the valves are working.
This test is sometimes called an 'exercise thallium scan', a 'dual isotope treadmill' or an 'exercise nuclear scan'.
A tiny dose of a radioactive substance called a 'tracer' is injected into your bloodstream. It goes to your heart and releases energy. Special cameras take a picture of this energy from outside your body, before, during and after exercise.
Your doctor uses this picture to see how much blood flows to your heart muscle and how well your heart pumps blood when you are resting and doing physical activity. This test also helps your doctor to see if your heart muscle is damaged.
Doctors use tilt table tests to help diagnose the cause of symptoms like unexplained fainting, dizziness or light headedness. The test shows whether different body positions (e.g. standing up and lying down) cause changes in heart rate or blood pressure.
Last updated15 May 2024