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Cardiogenic shock is a medical emergency and can only be diagnosed in a hospital setting. Shock has many different etiologies, one of which is cardiogenic. To be able to identify cardiogenic shock, the emergency room physician may involve a cardiologist immediately. The patient will need to get a chest x-ray to see if there’s fluid in the lungs and if the heart is enlarged. The patient will need to have an EKG to look to see if there’s any arrhythmias or if there’s any signs of heart attack on the EKG. The patient will need a heart ultrasound or an echocardiogram to look to see if any walls of the heart are weakened, or if the heart muscle itself is weakened, and whether the left ventricle or the right ventricle is having a problem. And then the patient may actually need to have blood testing to look for signs of kidney failure, signs of heart attack, and also maybe have blood gas that will tell you how much acid is built up in the body. The patient will then need to have a coronary angiogram and right and left heart catheterization to measure pressures within the heart, but also to take pictures of the arteries to see if there is any blockages that would need emergent treatment and support.
