This uses a radioactive isotope injected intravenously to measure blood flow to the heart during exercise.
Heart nuclear stress test machine.
Next you either exercise or receive medicine to simulate exercise and will have a second scan to obtain pictures after stress.
If you have coronary heart disease you may have chest pain during the stress test.
A nuclear stress test uses radioactive dye and an imaging machine to create pictures showing the blood flow to your heart.
A nuclear stress test is one of several types of stress tests that may be performed alone or in combination.
Medicine can help relieve your chest pain.
It s usually done in conjunction with an exercise stress test on a treadmill but can also be performed using medicines such as regadenoson and dobutamine that effectively simulate the effects of exercise on the heart.
The speed and resistance of the exercise machine may be increased over time.
Compared with an exercise stress test a nuclear stress test can help better determine your risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event if your doctor knows or suspects that you have coronary artery disease.
During a nuclear stress test with exercise you will walk on a treadmill or pedal on a stationary bicycle.
Bring it to the test and make sure the health care team monitoring your stress test knows that you use.
It also may be used to help determine whether the heart has been damaged by chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
The heart pumps blood to every part of the body and it too needs blood to work just like any other muscle.
When the heart muscle is exercised it requires more blood to work harder.
The study utilizes a radioactive tracer to create an image of how well blood is reaching your heart muscle both during exercise and while at rest.
How does it work.
A nuclear stress test is a study aimed at measuring whether the blood flow to your heart muscle is normal or abnormal.
Nuclear scanning of the heart shows how well blood flows to the heart muscle.
Nuclear heart scans have few risks.
Sometimes due to blockage within one or more coronary arteries blood flow can be partially impeded or fully blocked from reaching the heart muscle tissue.
In rare instances some people have a treatable allergic reaction to the tracer.
A traditional nuclear stress test uses a gamma camera a donut shaped imaging machine to take pictures of your heart after injection of a radioactive tracer.
This uses medicine rather than exercise to determine if the heart is functioning properly.
The patient is scanned at rest and pictures are obtained.
Talk to your doctor and the technicians performing the.
Your heart rate heart rhythm and blood pressure will be monitored closely during the test.
The test measures blood flow while you are at rest and are exerting yourself showing areas with poor blood flow or damage in your heart.
The amount of radiation in this test is small.
