Cardiac imaging: echocardiogram, MRI, CT

If your child’s doctor suspects your child may have a heart problem, cardiac imaging might help the doctor find out what’s going on.

Our specialized team at Advocate Children’s Heart Institute provides high quality diagnostic cardiac imaging. Using various advanced technologies, we’re able to visualize your child’s heart in incredible detail using a variety of techniques to diagnose heart conditions and disorders.

In addition to specialized imaging at Advocate Children’s Hospital, we also bring our echocardiography services to our many outreach clinics throughout Chicagoland.

Most echocardiograms take at least 40 minutes, although the time varies depending on what your child's doctor needs to see.

Types of cardiac imaging

We’re here to support you and your child through a variety of imaging methods, including echocardiography (heart ultrasound), cardiac CT and cardiac MRI. Our goal is to provide accurate diagnostic information for even the most complex cardiac patients, from babies in the womb to adults with congenital heart disease.

Transthoracic echocardiograms

A transthoracic echocardiogram, or TTE, gives your child’s doctor a good view of their overall heart health. TTE also checks the heart for abnormalities such as holes or valve problems and assesses the heart’s pumping strength.

The transthoracic echocardiogram is a painless procedure that uses harmless sound waves to take a detailed picture of the heart. During a TTE, a sonographer specializing in congenital heart disease will place a transducer (camera) on your child’s chest and transmit images to a nearby computer screen. You can stay with your child throughout these exams. Our pediatric and adult congenital cardiologists will examine these images and diagnose any abnormalities.

In addition to standard transthoracic echocardiograms, our team is skilled in advanced cutting-edge techniques, such as 3-D and strain imaging.

Our echocardiography labs at Advocate Children’s Hospital are accredited by the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission, and our sonographers are accredited through the American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography.

Transesophageal echocardiograms

Transesophageal echocardiogram, or TEE, is a specialized form of heart ultrasound that gives your child’s doctor a good view of their heart health through high-quality 3-D images of the heart and blood vessels. Unlike the transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE), the transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE), uses a camera that is placed in the esophagus (rather than the outside of the chest) in order to see the heart in more detail.

During the exam, your child will receive sedation or anesthesia to help them be comfortable during the procedure. We’ll gently insert a tube into your child’s throat and move it into the esophagus and stomach.

Our cardiologists frequently use these exams to guide procedures and minimize radiation exposure in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Similarly, our cardiovascular surgeons use TEE imaging to assess the heart immediately before and after surgery.

Fetal echocardiograms

Early detection of a fetal heart problem is key to your baby’s success. These heart ultrasounds allow our fetal cardiology team to view moving images of your baby’s heart before they’re born. These images allow us to assess the structure and pumping strength of your baby’s heart and ensure high quality pre- and post-natal care.

During the exam, a sonographer will place a transducer (camera) on your abdomen and transmit images on a nearby computer screen. Learn more about our fetal cardiology program.

Stress echocardiograms

Stress echocardiograms are a specialized form of heart ultrasound designed to assess the heart during times of increased work. In most cases, we’ll take images of the heart immediately after your child exercises on a treadmill. Medications also may be used to increase the pumping of the heart during imaging.

Computed tomography

Often called a CAT scan, computed tomography is an imaging procedure using a narrow beam of X-rays. Your child will lay on a table that moves through the machine as the X-ray rotates, then a computer then builds those X-rays into a 3-D picture.

Depending on the pictures desired, a special dye may be given intravenously to allow for more detailed images of the heart and blood vessels. These types of scans are used to get 3-D images and measurements of the heart that can’t be obtained by ultrasound echocardiograms.

The latest generation of CT scanners used in our facilities are designed to minimize the amount of radiation used. Great care is taken to tailor each study to use the minimum amount of radiation necessary.

When taking images of the smallest blood vessels around the heart, we may give your child medications to slow their heart or relax the blood vessels in order to get the best images.

Cardiac MRI images

Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, is an imaging technique that uses powerful magnets and pulses of radio waves to produce detailed 3-D images of the body. Your child will lay on a bed for up to two hours within a large magnet and must remain very still during the imaging process in order not to blur the image. A special dye may be given intravenously before or during the MRI to show blood vessels and certain tissues more clearly.

A cardiac MRI is used to produce images of the structure and function of the heart, measure blood flow in blood vessels, and evaluate heart muscle tissue for damage such as scar, infection or inflammation.

An MRI differs from CT in that it doesn’t use the damaging ionizing radiation of X-rays. There are no known long-term effects of exposure to the magnet or radio waves used in MRI.

Performing the MRI requires significant time to get the correct images. Therefore, some common challenges with this exam include:

• Being afraid of the equipment making loud noises
• Claustrophobia
• Being anxious. Your child’s doctor can write a prescription for anti-anxiety medication if needed.

If your child is unable to complete the study because they’re very young or due to developmental delay, the MRI can be performed under general anesthesia.

Meet our cardiac imaging team.