Myocardial Scintigraphy

Myocardial scintigraphy is used to examine the regional blood flow to your heart muscle in two conditions, namely at rest and under stress. The stress condition is simulated either by exercise (e.g. riding a bicycle) or by infusing a medication that increases the blood flow to the heart muscle or another medication increasing the heart rate. During the exercise, a radioactive medication causing low-level radiation is injected into an arm vein, which is distributed in the heart muscle tissue, proportional to the regional blood flow. Forty-five minutes later, images of the heart are acquired using a rotating gamma camera around your chest, which show the distribution of the radioactive substance in your heart muscle.  The acquired cross-sectional (SPECT) images are used to estimate the regional blood flow to your heart muscle

How do you have to prepare for the examination?

-It is imperative that you come in a fasting state for the examination. You should take nothing by mouth except water on the day of the examination.

-Please bring your current documents, such as exercise EKG, with you to the examination.

-Please bring a small fatty meal (e.g. a sandwich) or chocolate with you, as you will have to eat something after applying the radioactive test drug.

-You have to clarify by telephone with your doctor whether and how long you need to stop taking your medication before the examination.

The examination procedure

The examination usually takes place on two consecutive days: On the first day of the examination, the resting examination is carried out first. For this purpose, the low-level radioactively marked medication is injected into the arm vein. You have about 45 minutes during which you should take the breakfast you brought with. After 45 minutes pictures are taken with the gamma camera, its heads move around your chest and take pictures of the distribution of the radioactive medicine (SPECT) from many different directions.

The examination under stress takes place the next day. It differs from the procedure of the resting examination in the following way: you are stressed (by cycling or a medication) and the low-level radioactive medication is injected shortly before the end of the stress.  Afterwards you have - as on the previous day - approx. 45 minutes to take the breakfast you brought with you. After 45 minutes, images are taken with the gamma camera, from which the blood circulation of the heart muscle is calculated.