You will be asked to swallow a very small pacing catheter about the size of a piece of spaghetti. The pacing wire sits in your esophagus (the tube that runs between your mouth and your stomach). It is able to pace the heart rate at a higher rate by delivering small electrical impulses. This makes the heart pump at a higher rate, as if you were exercising. Once your target heart rate has been reached, the sonographer will take echocardiographic pictures of your heart to see how you respond to exercise.

The For Patients section has instructions for preparing for pacing echocardiography.