Nuclear Stress Test

A nuclear stress test measures the amount of blood in your heart muscle at rest and during exercise. It is often done to find out what may be causing symptoms like angina (such as chest pain or pressure). It may be done after a heart attack to see if areas of the heart are not getting enough blood or to find out how much heart muscle has been damaged from the heart attack.

There are two parts to the this stress test. There is a Rest test  and a Stress test.

On the day of the Rest test you receive an injection in the vein (IV) of medication that allows us to take the pictures of the blood flood to your heart at rest.

On the day of the Stress test you will have an IV placed in the vein and will be connected to an EKG. We will then perform the stress portion of the test and you will then receive the medication that allows us to take pictures of the blood flow to your heart while at "stress".

The way we use to preform the stress test is ordered by your physician. We use two different ways to preform the stress portion of the test:

Treadmill, where you will walk/run on an incline and till we reach a target heart rate.

Medication, We use a medication that will dilate the arteries around the heart. The medication we use is determined by your physician.

This test is also known by other names including myocardial perfusion scan, myocardial perfusion imaging, sestamibi cardiac scan, Spect scan, and mibi.