You or your child may have a number of tests performed to make or confirm the diagnosis and monitor the condition.

Tests -- or “studies” -- can be invasive or non-invasive. An invasive medical procedure requires that a part of the body is entered, usually by needle puncture or surgical incision. Non-invasive procedures are usually done completely on the outside of the body and do not involve an incision, although sometimes a needle stick or IV will be needed.

Sometimes a non-invasive test may require sedation or anesthesia to perform the test due to the age or mental status of the patient. This will slightly increase the risk of the non-invasive test but will be used when the cardiologist decides that the benefits of the test clearly outweigh any risk of sedation.

Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory

Duke’s Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory, or Echo Lab, performs diagnostic cardiac ultrasound on children with known and suspected congenital and other cardiac lesions. We perform transthoracic, fetal, and transesophageal echocardiograms.

These procedures are necessary for the diagnosis of patients with congenital or acquired cardiovascular disease. Non-invasive transthoracic diagnostic procedures performed include:

• Doppler echo
• Color doppler
• 2D/M-Mode

Invasive procedures include intraoperative and nonoperative transesophageal echocardiograms.

What is an echocardiogram?

Other Diagnostic Imaging

Tests performed at the Duke Congenital Heart Program include:

• Autonomic tilt table testing
• Blood test
• Cardiac catheterization and angiocardiography
• Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Chest X-ray
• Electrocardiogram
• Electrophysiology (EP) Study
• Exercise testing
• Heart biopsy
• Holter monitoring
• Pacemaker testing
• Pulse oximetry
• Transtelephonic monitoring

Physicians

Physicians offering this service include:

• Carboni, Michael P.

Locations

This service is available at:

• Duke Children's Cardiology of Fayetteville
  3427 Melrose Road, Fayetteville, NC 28304
• Duke Children's Consultative Services of Raleigh
  3713 Benson Dr., Suite 202, Raleigh, NC 27609
• Duke Children's Hospital & Health Center
  2301 Erwin Road, Durham, NC 27710
• Womack Army Medical Center
  Normandy Drive, Fort Bragg, NC 28310