Cardiac Tests
Stress Nuclear Testing
Stress
Thallium testing is a form of a treadmill test that may provide added
useful information about your prognosis. A nuclear material is injected
into your blood stream while you exercise on the treadmill. The material
is safe and medically approved. Similar nuclear materials are used to
obtain bone scans, brain scans, thyroid scans etc. The nuclear material
is taken up by your heart and is distributed through the heart muscle
according to blood flow. Areas of the heart that are supplied by narrowed
arteries will have reduced blood flow that will show up on scanning as
reduced areas of radioactivity. These techniques are more accurate than
routine treadmill testing in finding coronary disease and determining
its severity. Scanning agents include Thallium and Sestamibi (MIBI).
MIBI scanning has the added advantage of providing information on the
pump function of the heart. Both stress and persantine thallium and sestamibi
stress tests are useful in excluding falsely abnormal treadmill stress
tests and carry 90-95% accuracy.
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