Procedure for nuclear medicine exam

Myocardial scintigraphy captures the blood flow in the heart muscle under stressed and unstressed conditions.

Indication: ruling out relevant blood flow problems for an elevated risk profile, or if sufficient bicycle ergometric stress cannot be established or interpreted (e.g., left bundle branch block), abnormal stress ECG, assessment of relevance for known constriction of the coronary arteries, therapy progression monitoring, prior to a major planned surgical intervention.

Preparation: Before the stress test, you should fast, should not have taken heart pills, and should not have had any caffeinated beverages for while (this information will be provided separately prior to the exam.) Before the unstressed exam, you should have taken your pills.

Procedure: You will almost always first be examined under stress conditions, that is, you will need to ride an ergometer bike, just like for a stress ECG. Or you may receive medication through a vein in the arm that “simulates” stress on the heart. In this case you will also ride a bike, but at a lower resistance level. At the time of maximum stress, we inject the weakly radioactive substance through a vein in the arm, which then distributes itself through the blood flow in the heart muscle. About one hour later, the images are taken with a gamma camera, which takes about 15 to 20 minutes.

Depending on the results of the exam, and your known findings, an exam under unstressed conditions may be needed. You will have the same weakly radioactive substance injected again, then wait about an hour, then the images will be recorded with the gamma camera.

Time required: The exam is usual done over two days. The stress test takes about 2 hours, and the unstressed test takes about 1.5 hours. In rare cases, both exams can be performed on the same day, which takes about 3 to 4 hours.