Screening Modalities

• What are some advantages of echoes of the heart?

  Noninvasive

  No ionizing radiation exposure

  Real time imaging

  Portable

  Quantitative

  Perfect for serial imaging
• How is transthoracic/-esophageal echo limited?

  Imaging quality when using on obese patients or patients with obstructive lung disease.
• Stress MPI: gamma rays emitted by patient are picked up by the sodium iodide crystals in the apparatus
• CCS: scans patient for calcium and identifies calcium burden based off score
• Coronary CTA is used to screen patients with coronary artery disease in a non-invasive way.
• Disadvantages of Coronary CTA include use of ionizing radiation, iodinated contrast, and limited use in arrhythmic patients.
• What is an adverse effect of cardiac MRI in patients with low creatinine clearance?

  Utilizes Gadolinium which can cause adverse skin conditions.
• Bleeding Time Anticoagulation Test: When a small slit is made in the skin, the hemostatic mechanisms necessary for coagulation are activated and the time it takes to heal is measured.
• Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time: The aPTT measures the time necessary to generate fibrin from initiation of the intrinsic pathway by measuring how long it takes for activating substance, kaolin, to appear
• Prothrombin Time: plasma + thromboplastin are incubated and then timed for how long it takes for calcium to appear and indicate the presence fibrin precursor factors.
• Thrombin Time: plasma + thrombin incubated and measured for how long it takes fibrin to appear
• Fibrin Degradation Products Test: Series of dilutions of serum are texted with FDP-Ab-absorbed latex particles to oberve agglutination