The Congenital Heart Center at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital diagnoses and treats the full spectrum of heart conditions and diseases, from the most common to the most complex. We employ a wide variety of diagnostic tools to help our medical teams determine (and rule out) possible treatments options for your child.
Most diagnostic tests are scheduled through our Pediatric Cardiology Coordinated Care office. We do our best to move you through the testing day as efficiently as possible, however, please be prepared to spend most of your day with us. Your child should continue taking his/her regularly prescribed medications unless you are informed differently by the nurse practitioner.
Diagnostic Tests Used at the Congenital Heart Center
A member of our care team will thoroughly review each test prescribed and what you and your child can expect in terms of the amount of time each test will take, level of pain to expect (if any), how pain will be controlled and recovery time, as needed.
Diagnostic Tools:
- Blood work
- Cardiac catheterization
- Cardiac catheterization with a biopsy -- during the cardiac catheterization, a biopsy of the heart tissue is taken to help assess transplant rejection
- Chest X-ray
- Echocardiogram
- Electrocardiogram
- Exercise test
- MRI
- Six-minute walk test -- the object of this test is to walk as far as possible in six minutes. It is generally used for patients with pulmonary hypertension. Your nurse practitioner will review how to prepare for this test if it is required.