Echocardiography
Echocardiograms use sound waves to map a pet’s heart, allowing Bear Valley Veterinary Care Center’s veterinarians to see precise information about its valves, chambers, blood flow and contractions. They show heart shape, size, capacity, thickness and possible abnormalities or places of trauma.
Echocardiography is a form of ultrasound. This ultrasound technique is used to assess heart health and diagnose cardiovascular disease in pets and humans. Like other ultrasounds, they use high-frequency sound waves produced by a small probe placed against your pet’s skin. These sound waves travel throughout the heart and are reflected by its various tissues. The probe then translates the sound waves into a real-time image of your pet’s heart.
Veterinary Diagnoses with Echocardiograms
Echocardiograms are important and useful diagnostic tools in veterinary medicine because they are precise and effective at locating heart problems. They are also noninvasive and completely painless, plus they don’t require anesthesia or sedation. They do not expose pets to radiation, and pets that receive echocardiograms experience no adverse side-effects.
With the information gleaned from an echocardiogram, your Bear Valley Veterinary Care Center veterinarian can precisely diagnose heart conditions like congestive heart failure, injury, congenital defects and arrhythmias.
Bear Valley Veterinary Care Center veterinarians often couple echocardiography with other diagnostic tools, like radiographs (X-rays), so we can gain detailed information about your pet’s body.
Schedule an appointment at Bear Valley Veterinary Care Center if you suspect your pet may need an echocardiogram.