What Is Angina?

By kara

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4. How Is Angina Diagnosed?

Angina is usually diagnosed through a battery of tests, but first, your primary care doctor will want to perform a physical exam. During the exam, the doctor will ask you a series of questions related to medical and family history. They are trying to determine any risk factors, such as a genetic predisposition to heart disease.

After performing the standard tests, such as blood draws and stress tests, your doctor will also perform a series of imaging tests. For example, they may want to do a nuclear stress test. For this stress test, your doctor will inject a radioactive substance into your bloodstream, and, using a special scanner, they can get an image of your heart muscle. This exam will show areas with inadequate blood flow as dim, with less radioactive material.

Stress tests are not the only way of determining or diagnosing angina. There are several other tests as well, including an echocardiogram, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, coronary angiography, cardiac MRI or cardiac computerized tomography scan.