Diagnostics & Testing

Veins are blood ves­sels that car­ry blood back to the heart. To keep blood mov­ing toward the heart, veins have one way valves. When the valves break­down, blood does not flow well and can cause Chron­ic Venous Insuf­fi­cien­cy (CVI) and vari­cose veins. The abnor­mal flow of blood is typ­i­cal­ly referred to as ​‘reflux’ since the blood moves back­wards and for­wards. Venous reflux occurs most often in veins clos­est to the skin (super­fi­cial veins) and vari­cose veins can be blue, red, or flesh-col­ored. They typ­i­cal­ly look like cords under the skin and can be twist­ed or bulging. Spi­der veins are like vari­cose veins, but much small­er. The look like small tree branch­es on the sur­face of the skin.

Flu­o­roscopy, or flu­o­ro, is made up of ​“live” X‑ray images that when they are put togeth­er look like a movie. A flu­o­ro­scope allows med­ical staff to see bones and also helps physi­cians to iden­ti­fy soft tis­sue pathology.

Pul­monary func­tion tests (PFTs) are a series of non-inva­sive diag­nos­tic tests that mea­sure how well your lungs work and can be used to help diag­nose cer­tain lung dis­or­ders. ​‘Pul­monary func­tion tests’ is an inclu­sive term that refers to many dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dures that mea­sure how your lungs work in dif­fer­ent ways. Specif­i­cal­ly these tests mea­sure how well you are able to breathe and how well your lungs are able to sup­ply oxy­gen to your body by mea­sur­ing your lung vol­umes, capac­i­ties, rates of flow and gas exchange.

Radi­ol­o­gy imag­ing is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of health­care used as a tool in med­i­cine to show parts of the body. But have you ever won­dered why your physi­cian referred you for a CT scan instead of an MRI, or what Nuclear Med­i­cine is used for? If so, this info­graph­ic is an easy ref­er­ence chart that high­lights the dif­fer­ent types of diag­nos­tic imag­ing and what they’re used for.

Obe­si­ty is a chron­ic, neu­robe­hav­ioral dis­ease that affects over 30 per­cent of adults in the Unit­ed States today. You are con­sid­ered obese if your Body Mass Index (BMI) score, which com­pares your height to weight ratio, is 30 or high­er. Over­time, car­ry­ing excess weight increas­es your risk of devel­op­ing oth­er health con­di­tions like dia­betes, high blood pres­sure and sleep apnea.

The terms ​“closed” and ​“open” gen­er­al­ly refers to the geom­e­try of the mag­nets used in MRI scanners.

Today’s podi­a­trists are spe­cial­ists, med­ical­ly and sur­gi­cal­ly trained to treat the foot and ankle. From sports injuries and dia­betes com­pli­ca­tions to pedi­atric defor­mi­ties and heel pain, podi­a­trists are able to tack­le all of your foot care needs. Licensed in all 50 states, the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and Puer­to Rico, there are approx­i­mate­ly 15,000 podi­a­trists prac­tic­ing in the Unit­ed States. Here are answers to fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions (FAQs) about today’s podiatrists.

Each year when spring and sum­mer roll around do you fear wear­ing shorts or your bathing suit due to your vari­cose veins? You don’t have to feel this way any­more! A min­i­mal­ly inva­sive treat­ment exists that can help get you the legs you want. Endove­nous laser treat­ment elim­i­nates unsight­ly vari­cose veins with an in-office pro­ce­dure, min­i­mal-to-no scar­ring or side effects and with a quick recov­ery. The endove­nous laser treat­ment pro­ce­dure is safe, fast, and effec­tive, per­formed by our high­ly trained, board-cer­ti­fied vas­cu­lar sur­geons. In less than an hour, you can be free from bulging, twist­ed vari­cose veins and back to enjoy­ing your every­day activities.

There are a few dif­fer­ent stan­dard blood tests gen­er­al­ly ordered by your physi­cian. Many blood tests don’t require any spe­cial prepa­ra­tion and take only a few min­utes. Oth­er tests may require fast­ing (not eat­ing any food) for 8 to 12 hours before the test.

The Amer­i­can Thy­roid Asso­ci­a­tion reports that while thy­roid lumps (nod­ules) are com­mon, few­er than 1 in 10 is can­cer­ous. If a physi­cian feels a lump in your neck/​thyroid, a fine nee­dle aspi­ra­tion may be rec­om­mend­ed to diag­nose if it is cancer.