Heart Artery Disease

• Introduction
• Chest pain
  • Angina
  • Other chest pain
• Heart attack (myocardial infarction)
  • Introduction
• Assessment of the heart arteries
  • Treadmill stress test
  • Stress echocardiogram
  • Stress nuclear studies
  • Angiogram- invasive
  • Angiogram- CT
• Treatment of heart artery disease
  • Medication
  • Stent treatment
  • Heart bypass surgery

Stress Nuclear Studies

Instead of a stress echocardiogram a stress nuclear study can be performed. A chemical that is taken up in the heart muscle is labelled radioactively. This is injected into a vein and pictures taken using special cameras.

As with a stress echocardiogram, the test can be performed after walking on a treadmill or after administration of medication through a vein.

In some countries this test is preferred over stress echocardiography. In NZ the test is usually performed if a stress echocardiogram is not feasible, such as when poor pictures are obtained with the heart scanning machine.