What is a cardiac risk assessment?
This is a group of tests and health factors that have been proven to indicate your chance of having a cardiovascular event such as heart attack or stroke. They have been refined to indicate the degree of risk: slight, moderate, or high. What is included in a cardiac risk assessment? Perhaps the most important indicators for cardiac risk are those of your personal health history. Age, hereditary factors, weight, cigarette smoking, blood pressure, exercise history, and diabetes are all important in determining your risk. The lipid profile is the most important blood test for risk assessment. There are imaging tests, non-invasive and invasive, that may be used in cardiac risk assessment. Non-invasive tests may include an electrocardiogram (ECG, EKG), ECG stress test, nuclear stress test, computerized tomography (CT) scan, echocardiogram, and magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA). Invasive tests include an angiography/arteriography and cardiac catheterization. (For more on these, see the Mayo
