Casa de Corazon | Cardiology & Stem Cell
SERVICES / PROCEDURES
TTE (transthoracic echocardiogram)
Echocardiogram (sonogram) of your heart. Non-invasive, inmensely usefull for the cardiologist. Ambulatory, 10min procedure to asses size, function of the heart and its valvular structures. Performed by cardiac trained echocardiography technitian.
Right Heart Catheterism
A right sided catheterism is an invasive test where we access the right side of the heart structures to evaluate their anatomy and commonly measure directly the pressures of the right ventricle and pulmonary circulation. We also do this to asses for suspected anatomical conections that could affect oxygenation.
Treadmill Stress Test
Ambulatory procedure wher we evaluate how your heart's coronaries responds to activity and evaluate for LV function and or old myocardial infarcts. Weather on an actual treadmill or chemically we increase the oxygen demand on your heart and its suplying coronaries to look for any abnormalities. The sequence usually takes about three hours in total. Done when attemting to know if your symptoms are cardiac or not or to evaluate after known myocardial infarcts, when CABG (By-pass surgery) or stenting (PCI) has taken place.
Holter Monitoring
Ambulatory recording device that collects all of your heart's electrical activity in order to rule out or diagnose arrythmias. Usually 24hr but could be up to 36hr. Small device about the size of a cell phone and two wires worn under your shirt.
Implantable loop recorder
For those who are having palpitations and/or have had a stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA) suspected to be due to an arrythmia, this diminute device slightly thinner than a AAA battery, its placed under your skin next to the heart in a 5 min ambulatory procedure. It can be left there from months to up to 3 years. It communicates wirelessly via Wifi (using a small tablet) in order to; in real time; monitor your heart rythm and help us diagnose any rythm abnormality. This is invaluable to define therapy and more importantly prevent further strokes or CVA's.
Electrocardiography
ECG is now 144 years old, this is the oldest cardiac technology in use today. It is still a core item for evaluating the electrical function of your heart and in some circumstances can alert to structural heart problems or arrythmias. Ambulatory and only 5 min, performed at office.
Insurances we Accept
Cigna, Aetna, UHC, United Neighborhood, Humana,
Prefered Health Partners, Blue Cross Blue Shield,
Coventry, and Medicare/Medicaid
Stem cell therapy is a remarkable bio-technology that has become the new frontier of medicine. Stem cells are located in many places in our bodies. No, we are not talking about fetal or umbilical cord stem cells. We are talking about adult stem cells, Adult stem cells are inside of us and these are capable of turning into different types of tissues in our bodies. These stem cells, given the right set of circumstances can help grow skin, vessels, bone, muscle and ligaments, among other types of tissues.
In cardiovascular medicine we now know that this type of intervention can potentialy heal a non-healing ulcer in a patient with critical limb ischemia. They can restore the vascularity to the corpus cavernosus and greatly improve Erectile dysfunction (see Revitastem) .In a patient with previuous heart attack and congestive heart failure, they can improve overall function of the heart.
Coronary Angiography
Cardiac cath or angiography (left heart catheterism) is an invasive 20-30 min procedure where I access your heart circulation, or coronaries, to evaluate for obstructions or abnormalities. Directly we can also measure your heart function and valvular problems and/or asses your thoracic or abdominal Aorta. Also performed to asses weather your stents are working properly. Performed in the hospital cath lab suite, it is an ambulatory procedure 95% of the time.
Cardiac PET Stress Test
This is the best test available to date to detect and characterize coronary artery disease or myocardial infartion, and asses left ventricular systolic function, far superior to a regular stress test or "nuclear" stress test, simpler and shorter in duration as well. This is an ambulatory test, about 45min long from start to finish. This is the newer test to asses coronary function. It is expected to and eventually will replace a regular treadmill/nuclear imaging stress test.
Continuous Event Monitoring "Live Telemetry"
This is a small, cellphone like device that connected by two small cables to your chest will record electrical activity of your heart in order to asses for arrythmias. The advantage over a regular Holter, this one sends over satellite real-time recordings sent to a panel of technitians constantly looking at the recording in order to evaluate. This one is worn for a longer period of time too, anywhere from 7-30days depending on the frequency of the symptoms.
Low intensity shockwave therapy
Low intensity shock wave therapy has been demonstrated to induce the production of angiogenesis factors and when added to stem cell therapy can significantly increase the revascularization response of the treatmet. It is usually utilized in combination to treat ED as well as PAD.