What Are the Risks of Echocardiography?

There are no risks associated with transthoracic or fetal echocardiography. If you have a transesophageal echocardiography, there are some risks associated with medicine given to help you relax. These include a bad reaction to the medicine, difficulty breathing, or nausea. Your throat also might be sore for a few hours after the test. On rare occasions, the tube can cause a minor throat injury.

There are risks associated with stress echocardiography, but these are related to the exercise or medicine used to raise your heart rate, not to the echocardiography part of the test. Serious complications from cardiac stress tests are very uncommon. See the Diseases and Conditions Index Stress Testing article for more information about the risks of that test.