Cardiac Imaging

Cardiac imaging helps to assess the health of your heart. Hackensack Radiology Group now offers a suite of specialized cardiac imaging with state-of-the-art equipment on multiple modalities including CT, Nuclear Medicine and MRI. These tests are most often found only in major academic medical centers, but are now available in a comfortable, outpatient setting.

Most cardiac imaging focuses on evaluating if you have heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, with one person dying every 40 seconds from a heart attack. Heart disease is caused by blockages in the vessels that supply your heart, also called coronary artery disease (CAD). Risk factors for CAD include: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, obesity, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise and family history of CAD. Hackensack Radiology Group offers multiple types of imaging to evaluate for CAD, including CT Calcium Score, Coronary CT Angiogram, Advanced Nuclear Stress Test (Rubidium PET-CT Myocardial Perfusion) and Cardiac MRI.

Other reasons for cardiac imaging include assessing the structure and function of the heart. Specifically, we can assess for infiltrative disease (e.g. sarcoidosis and amyloidosis) which may be causing heart problems such as reduced function or abnormal electrical activity/palpitations. We can also assess for several other heart conditions including heart infection (myocarditis), heart enlargement (hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy), valvular heart disease which can cause murmurs, scarring in your heart due to a heart attack as well other conditions. Most of this type of advanced imaging is done with Cardiac MRI.T Calcium Score, Coronary CT Angiogram, Advanced Nuclear Stress Test (Rubidium PET-CT Myocardial Perfusion) and Cardiac MRI.