At UAMS Health, we care for all kinds of heart disease. Our team offers surgery and minimally-invasive procedures that help keep your heart working efficiently. With experts from around the United States and the world, we run the UAMS Health Heart Center. The Heart Center is home to our Cardiology Clinic and our Cardiothoracic Clinic. Our doctors include cardiologists, interventional cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons (heart surgeons) whose one goal is to help your heart work properly.
General Cardiology
Our general cardiologists specialize in diagnosis of patients with chest pain, breathlessness and palpitations, and in the long-term management of patients with heart valve disease and heart failure. They are responsible for imaging of the heart with ultrasound {echocardiography), and three-dimensional imaging of the heart with CT scanners and MRI scanners. They also perform stress tests to assess whether people have blockages in their coronary arteries.
Interventional Cardiology
When further treatment is required, our interventional cardiologists can perform cardiac catheterization to assess directly whether coronary arteries are blocked and measure the function of the heart directly by measuring pressures and flows within the circulation. Quite often blocked coronary arteries can be cleared with an angioplasty procedure and a stent at the time of cardiac catheterization.
Structural Heart Care
When the issue is a heart valve problem or a hole in the heart, this can be solved by our structural heart disease specialists who can frequently repair or replace a defect in the heart using catheters introduced into the blood vessels.
The UAMS Health structural heart care team takes part in clinical trials that evaluate new devices and procedures to treat structural heart disease.
Cardiothoracic Surgery
If the number of arterial blockages is too great for an angioplasty and a stent or if the valvular disease is not suitable for catheter treatment, our cardiothoracic surgeons are well placed to offer open heart surgery to put the problem right. We offer all kinds of cardiac surgery at UAMS including surgery for heart failure.
Cardiac Electrophysiology
If you have a heart rhythm disturbance our heart rhythm experts (cardiac electrophysiologists) are here to help. Patients with disturbances of heart rhythm can often be managed with medication but on occasion intravascular surgery, or catheter ablation is necessary to restore the heart rhythm to normal. Our heart rhythm experts also implant pacemakers and defibrillators where necessary.
So, at UAMS Health, we provide comprehensive care for all kinds of patients with heart disease. Our internationally recognized group of experts have a collective skill set that encompasses almost all that is possible for medical and surgical care of heart disease. We hope that you will put your heart in our hands.
