Why would someone need an angiogram?

Heart disease: Generally the cardiologist suspects significant plaque or stenosis. There would be indicators of cardiovascular disease such as reversible ischemia, positive t-wave alternans, unstable chest pain, non-pulmonary shortness of breath and the angiogram is a diagnostic procedure to allow the cardiologist to evaluate the progress of cardiovascular disease and assess the need for revascularization.

Non-heart disease: Keep in mind that an angiogram can be used to visualize the vessels in any part of the body. Common places for angiography include the carotid arteries in the neck, the vessels in the brain, the kidneys and the GI tract. In all of these cases, the technique is essentially the same.

See Advanced Disease: Angiogram means blood picture; pictures show a 2d image, still or motion, of dye added into the blood, so that the blood column shows on x-ray. Goal: eval & tx symptoms of advanced ds. Keep in mind: arterial disease within the artery walls & does not show in the angiogram pictures. So be sure that you see, closely examine, keep copies of the images & work on understanding them; your body/life.