• Cardiovascular Medicine Consultation
• Preventive Care
• Diagnostic Testing
  • Nuclear stress testing
  • Echocardiography
  • Stress Echocardiography
  • Arterial and Venous Ultrasound
  • Ambulatory ECG Monitoring
  • Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring
  • Cardiac Angiography
  • Peripheral Vascular Angiography
  • Pacemaker/ICD evaluation and Routine Care
• Cardiac and Vascular Interventions

Nuclear Stress Testing

Nuclear Stress testing is one way that physicians can diagnose coronary artery disease. Physicians often use Nuclear Stress Testing to evaluate patients with symptoms of chest pain. However, information about the wall motion of the heart can also be gathered from this test.

During nuclear imaging, a small dose of a radioactive isotope is injected into the bloodstream. The radioisotope, or tracer, is carried by the blood to the heart muscle. Special cameras detect the energy released from the tracers and record information about the amount of blood flow that each wall of the heart is getting. Images are recorded at rest, and after exercise on a treadmill or stationary bicycle. If a patient is unable to exercise, a medication can be given to evaluate the heart arteries' response to stress. The tracers used in nuclear imaging lose their radioactivity quickly and typically pass from the body within 24 hours.