Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Karen W. on 02/10/2007 00:16:03
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I am scheduled Tue. and Wed. for these tests! He said I cannot do the treadmill test so he wants me to take this chemical induced stress test to check blood supply to the heart muscle.
I understand I will be given an iv which will introduce the chemical into my bloodstream.It will take three and 1/2 hours Tue.at 10:15AM and then again on Wed.at 8:45Am.
Is this test dangerous and does this chemical hurt??? "I am afraid I am a big baby"
What is the chemical and how does it cause stress, what does it do?? Does it increase your heart rate or what?
I would like to know before I go if anyone knows anything or if you have had one???
Does it have side effects?
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The Cardioloite injection is a short-lived radioactive Technetium isotope...
Nuclear medicine
99mTc ("m" indicates that this is a metastable nuclear isomer) is used in radioactive isotope medical tests, for example as a radioactive tracer that medical equipment can detect in the human body.[12] It is well suited to the role because it emits readily detectable 140 keV gamma rays, and its half-life is 6.01 hours (meaning that about fifteen sixteenths of it decays to 99Tc in 24 hours).[13] Klaus Schwochau's book Technetium lists 31 radiopharmaceuticals based on 99mTc for imaging and functional studies of the brain, myocardium, thyroid, lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, skeleton, blood, and tumors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technetium
Chemical (pharmacological) stress testing...
Pharmacological stress in conjunction with radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging has become a widely used noninvasive method of assessing patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease. In the United States, over one third of perfusion imaging studies are performed with pharmacological stress. Pharmacological stress agents fall into two categories: coronary vasodilating agents such as dipyridamole and adenosine, and cardiac positive inotropic agents such as dobutamine and arbutamine. For both, in the presence of coronary artery disease (CAD), perfusion image abnormalities result from heterogeneity of coronary blood flow reserve. Vasodilating agents work directly on the coronary vessels to increase blood flow, whereas inotropic agents work indirectly by increasing myocardial work load, which then leads to an increase in coronary blood flow. Both classes of agents have high accuracies for diagnosing coronary artery disease, and they have excellent safety records with acceptably low occurrences of side effects.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10534233
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thanks RD.. I failed my test! Some time ago actually.. thanks..So this test looks as if it is highly accurate eh..?
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I didn't notice your post was nine months old.
Perhaps you could include a brief account of what the chemical induced stress felt like for others who are due for this test and find this thread, (if possible include which of the two types pharmacological stress agents you were given).
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I don't know what the chemicals were but They administered it and I tried the tread mill and failed my test... I do not believe we were even 1 minute in and I collapsed.. Right before I went down something happened on the monitor and I said I did not feel good and got nauseated and felt light headed..and my chest felt horrible...The doctor belted out something and the nurse pushed a needle of meds into the Iv, tube someone caught me as I went back by shoving a chair behind me on the treadmill.. and before I knew it I was on a office table.. and having a blood pressure test... They said I failed my test..Had some problems.. He never explained further but scheduled me for a angioplasty..scope thingy.. where they put the camera in expecting to put stints in and turned out all arteries were clear! No need for stints..ended up with multiple tests afterwards and we still are in the dark about several things.. but they did find the aneurysm and recently a second one...and an embolism in the vena cava area which dissapeared in my second cat scan!
The test itself scared me.. but when I got there there was nothing worrisome... Everyone was capable and handled things well..
It was meant to just bring my heart up to a exercising level and to monitor how my heart responded and because there was something wrong with my heart which we knew.. that is what happened..it responded at first like my heart just felt like it was beating faster then it got really fast and I was totally out of breath.. and then sick and down... they stopped the test short of full cycle..
After wards they took pictures which were helpful to them for finding problems..
HAd to come back next day for a halter test.. passed that part though!
Anyway Next time won't be so worried as they are right there controlling everything...