BRIEF INFORMATION ABOUT NUCLEAR STRESS TEST MEANT ...

Stress, a nightmare, which affects many New Yorkers, is now arming itself with more deadly jaws, and it is now reaching the heart. Americans should be visiting heart specialists for early detection of risk for a heart attack. The number of patients who should be going to a cardiology lab with a referral for a nuclear stress test should be much greater than at present.

In this article, I tried to pull out some very informative pieces of an interview that was aired in a radio program last week.

Host: Can you please introduce our listeners with the term nuclear stress test?

Specialist: Nuclear stress testing, also called Myocardial Perfusion Imaging, acronym as MPI, is a test performed to measure the flow of blood to the muscles of heart while one is resting or undergoing stress. To assure the effectiveness of the test, patients are advised to undergo exercise.

The main purpose of this test is:

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• Obtaining images of the heart to check the flow of blood through the heart muscle
• Estimating the blockages inside the coronary arteries from these images
• Checking the contraction of the heart where the flow of blood is found to be low during exercise.

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Host: How this procedure is conducted?

Specialist: In this testing, a very small amount of a radioactive substance is injected into a vein in the arms or hand and this substance is medically termed a radionuclide. As soon as this radionuclide is injected, special medical equipment, known as a gamma camera takes images of patient???s heart in the resting position.

These images last for 15- 30 minutes and the nuclear imaging is performed at rest and after exercise.

Host: Does a patient require taking any pre-test precautions?

Specialist: Yes, there are a few precautions about food before this test, such as

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• Completely avoid caffeine, chocolate, soda or tea 12 hours before the test
• Avoid medicines with caffeine such as Anacin, Excedrin
• Stop any intake of solid food 4 hours prior to test

Host: Anything you want to advise about nuclear stress testing.
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