Heart Diagnostic Services
When it comes to heart disease, a prompt and accurate diagnosis is often vital. The advanced diagnostic services provided by Cedars-Sinai doctors, nurses and cardiac imaging specialists pave the way for a more comprehensive understanding of your condition, to allow for an innovative and unique care plan. Learn about the different diagnostic tests we offer.
Aortic Disease
Cardiac Amyloidosis
Cardiac Surgery
Cardio-Oncology
Congenital Heart Disease
Electrophysiology
General & Preventive Cardiology
Genetic Disorders
Heart Failure
Heart Transplant
Hypertension
Interventional Cardiology
Mechanical Circulatory Support
Pulmonary Hypertension
Regenerative Medicine
Valvular Heart Disease
Women's Heart Disease
Aortic Disease
- Angiogram
- Coronary CT angiography
- CT angiography
- Duplex ultrasound
- Genetic testing
- MRI/MRA
Cardiac Amyloidosis
- Blood or urine tests
- Advanced imaging, including cardiac MRI or a pyrophosphate heart scan
- Heart biopsy, if necessary
- Genetic testing
- Additional tests and evaluations from specialists
Cardiac Surgery
- Angiogram
- Cardiac catheterization
- Coronary CT angiography
- CT angiography
- Duplex ultrasound
- Genetic testing
- MRI/MRA
Congenital Heart Disease
- Cardiac catheterization
- Cardiac CT
- Cardiac MRI
- Cardiogenetics
- Cardiopulmonary exercise testing
- Chest X-ray
- Complex congenital cardiac imaging (transthoracic echocardiography, transesophageal echocardiography, intracardiac echocardiography, congenital cardiac MRI, congenital cardiac CT, 3D rotational angiography)
- Echocardiogram
- Electrocardiogram (EKG)
- Electrophysiology (adult congenital heart disease >14 years)
- Fetal cardiac diagnosis and counseling and cardiac genetic evaluation and counseling
- Fetal echocardiography
- Invasive echocardiography (transesophageal and intracardiac)
- Stress testing: medical and exercise
- Three-dimensional rotational angiography
Electrophysiology
- Cardiac rhythm monitoring
- Electrocardiograms (EKGs)
- Electrophysiology studies
- Tilt table studies
General & Preventive Cardiology
The Noninvasive Cardiac Laboratory performs noninvasive diagnostic tests in the laboratory for the heart rhythm and heart function. Two key areas of focus are:
- Electrocardiography, which performs electrocardiograms, treadmill exercise stress testing, tilt table studies, Holter monitoring, event monitoring, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, pacemaker/Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD) follow-up and cardioversions.
- Echocardiography, which performs echocardiograms including transthoracic echocardiograms, transesophageal echocardiograms, bicycle exercise stress echocardiograms, pacing echocardiograms and dobutamine echocardiograms.
In addition, Cedars-Sinai also offers:
- Bubble study with saline contrast
- Cardiac MRI
- Carotid artery intima-media thickness
- Contrast enhanced echocardiography
- Coronary calcium scanning
- Coronary CT angiography
- Loop recorders
- Nuclear/PET cardiac imaging
- Strain echocardiography
- ZIO patch monitoring
Genetic Disorders of Cardiovascular System
- Clinical screening
- Family genetic counseling
- Genetic testing and interpretation of testing results
- Inpatient and outpatient consultations
Heart Failure
- Cardiac biopsy: samples a small piece of the heart to determine the cause of the heart muscle problem.
- Cardiac MRI: a highly specialized type of MRI to study the heart muscle, valves, and arteries, with the capability to perform this in patients who have pacemakers.
- Cardiomems implantable pulmonary artery pressure monitor: to guide medication treatment to reduce hospitalizations
- Cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX or CPET): a bicycle test that analyses the heart and lung function to determine cause of shortness of breath
- Echocardiogram: ultrasound of the heart to check the heart muscle and valve function, with specialized components at Cedars-Sinai including 3D, contrast, and strain imaging
- Heart catheterization: a catheter is passed into the heart to check for coronary artery blockages and measure the heart function
- PET scan: a nuclear medicine study to search for heart muscle that would benefit from a stent or bypass surgery. Also a test used to look for sarcoidosis
- Technitium pyrophosphate scan: a nuclear study to identify a type of amyloidosis in the heart
- ZIO Patch, Holter monitors and implanted loop recorders: to detect heart rhythm abnormalities
Heart Transplant
- Cardiac catheterization with angiography: A special substance is injected into the blood vessel that reveals the inside of the artery.
- Cardiac imaging: Cedars-Sinai has a number of imaging modalities to detect acute and chronic rejection, including echocardiography, specialized cardiac MRI, and rubidium PET scanning.
- DNA test
- Endomyocardial biopsy: Performed to diagnose rejection in the first year post-transplantation. This is an invasive procedure used routinely to obtain small samples of heart muscle, primarily for detecting rejection of a donor heart following heart transplantation.
- Non-invasive tests: We are currently utilizing non-invasive blood tests to detect rejection, including the AlloMap and donor-derived cell free DNA tests. The use of the AlloMap test has decreased the need for invasive biopsies by 80% in our program. In studies, we are utilizing biomarker analyses including intragraft mRNA transcripts and circulating miRNA.
- Other tests: Our program routinely employs the T-cell immune function test to guide immunosuppression. This is one of the only tests available to let us know how immunoresponsive a patient is on immunosuppression.
Hypertension
- 24 to 72-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring
- 24-hour urine collection
- Adrenal vein sampling
- Echocardiography
- Electrocardiography
- Hormonal evaluation and confirmatory testing for suspected adrenal hypertension
- Stress testing
- Renal vascular ultrasound, CT or MR angiogram to rule out renal artery stenosis and fibromuscular dysplasia
Interventional Cardiology
- Angiogram
- Angioplasty and stenting of arteries
- Coronary atherectomy
- Electrophysiology studies
- Heart muscle biopsy
- Insertion of implantable defibrillators
- Radiofrequency ablation for cardiac arrhythmias
- Septal ablation
- Temporary and permanent pacemaker implantation
- Valvuloplasty
Mechanical Circulatory Support
- Automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (AICD): Monitors rhythm and provides pacing or shock therapy as appropriate.
- Cardiac biopsy: Samples a small piece of the heart to determine the cause of the heart muscle problem.
- Cardiac MRI: A highly specialized type of MRI to study the heart muscle, valves and arteries. Cedars Sinai has the capability to perform this in many patients who have pacemakers.
- Cardiomems implantable pulmonary artery pressure monitor: Guides medication treatment to reduce hospitalizations.
- Cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX or CPET): A bicycle test that analyzes the heart and lung function to determine the cause of shortness of breath.
- Echocardiogram: Ultrasound of the heart to check the heart muscle and valve function, with specialized components at Cedars-Sinai incuding 3D, contrast and strain imaging.
- Left heart catheterization: A catheter is passed into the heart to check for coronary artery blockages and measure heart function.
- PET scan: A nuclear medicine study to search for heart muscle that would benefit from a stent or bypass surgery. Also a test used to look for sarcoidosis.
- Right heart catheterization: A catheter is inserted into the right internal jugular vein and advanced into the right heart and pulmonary artery for hemodynamic assessment.
- Technetium pyrophosphate scan: A nuclear study to identify a type of amyloidosis in the heart.
- ZIO patch, Holter monitors and implanted loop recorders: Detect heart rhythm abnormalities.
Pulmonary Hypertension
- 6-minute walking test
- Cardiopulmonary exercise testing
- CT scan
- Echocardiogram
- MRI
- Pulmonary function tests
- Right and left heart catheterization
Regenerative Medicine
- 6-minute walking test
- Cardiopulmonary exercise testing
- Coronary reactivity testing
- Echocardiogram
- Electrocardiogram
- Exercise bike testing
- Exercise treadmill testing
- High-resolution CT scan
- Holter monitor (24-hour electrocardiogram monitoring)
- MRI
- PECT-CT
- Peripheral artery Doppler imaging
- Right and left cardiac catheterization studies
- ZioPatch (14 day electrocardiogram monitoring)
Valvular Heart Disease
- Angiogram
- Cardiac catheterization
- Coronary CT angiography
- CT angiography
- Duplex ultrasound
- MRI/MRA
- Genetic testing
Women's Heart Disease
- Advanced imaging for cardio-oncology (tissue doppler echo, cardiac MRI)
- Advanced imaging for HFpEF with suspected sarcoid (cardiac MRI, PET)
- Advanced imaging for INOCA/MINOCA (cardiac MRI, PET, CCTA)
- Advanced imaging for Takotsubo (cardiac MRI, MIBG)
- Arrhythmia diagnosis
- Cardio-Oncology Program
- Cardiovascular Intervention Center
- Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) scan
- Coronary angiography
- Coronary calcium scan
- Coronary reactivity test
- CT angiography
- Electrocardiogram (EKG)
- Exercise stress testing
- External counter pulsation treatment
- Heart Watch
- Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)
- Invasive coronary reactivity and flow reserve testing
- Pacing echocardiography
- Postpartum Heart Health Program
- Rest and stress echocardiogram
- Specialty invasive testing including acetylcholine coronary endothelial function and adenosine cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
- Specialty blood testing for inherited disorders
- Stress and dobutamine echocardiology
- Stress radionuclide perfusion or stress test
- Tilt table testing
- Transesophageal echocardiography
Get Help or Make an Appointment
Call or send a message to the Heart team. You can also have us call you back at your convenience.