Analysis of Thallium Stress Test

[snigdha24]

My father 64 yrs went through a Thallium Stress test. His report reads the following, Could some one help me understand what it really means. He has had not heart ailments so far. He is Hypertensive and diabetic and takes regular medicines and is very strict with his diet and exercises daily.

The report
Stress Isotope myocardial perfusion scintigraphy done following i/v injection of 300 MBq at rest and 900 MBq of Tc99m Sesta-MIBI at Bruce.  Mr. U.D. carried out exercise for 10:30 mins. and attained heart rate of 142 BPM (89% MPHR)

SPECT myocardial perfusion scintigraphy reveals:

(1) Nil significant lung uptake of radio pharmaceutical on a representative planer anterior projection scintigram.
(2) Maintained left ventricular cavity size on multiple coplanar orthogonal tomographic sections.
(3) 'Fixed" reduced uptake of radiotracer seen in the inferior wall, apparently due to soft tissue attenuation. Rest of the LV myocardium shows maintained perfusion.
(4) Color-coded 3D polar plot of regional myocardial perfusion distribution corroborates with above findings.

IMPRESSIONS

Features on SPECT myocardial perfusion scintigraphic study show no evidence for exercise induced reversible ischaemia at the level of exercise achieved.

[snigdha24]

Thanks a lot Ken,
Just wanted to understand (in a lay man's language) is it something alarming?

[kenkeith]

QUOTE: 'Fixed" reduced uptake of radiotracer seen in the inferior wall, apparently due to soft tissue attenuation. Rest of the LV myocardium shows maintained perfusion.

>>>>>>Soft tissue attenuation is one of the more common causes of an artifact. Meaning there is some obstruction in imaging and not a physical defect. The cause can be interference from the tissues of varying densities (eg, bone, lungs, and breast) resulting from body size, depth of the heart in the body, gender and patient position under the camera.

QUOTE: Features on SPECT myocardial perfusion scintigraphic study show no evidence for exercise induced reversible ischaemia at the level of exercise achieved.

>>>>> Reversible ischemia" means that an area of your heart isn't getting enough blood, likely from a narrowing in a coronary artery.  No evidence supporting that diagnosis with the level of exercise with 142 heart rate, and time of 10.30 minutes.  Appropriate result there are no occluded vessels.

Hope this gives a perspective, and if you have any further questions or comments you are welcome to respond.  Thanks for sharing, take care,

Ken