The cardiology exams

THE SCINTIGRAPHY OF THE HEART

- Concrete achievement
- Results
- Indications

RESULTS

The radioactive product settles down on the cells of the cardiac muscle when this one is living and does not if the muscle is dead.

Thus, the living areas of the muscle are coloured red whereas the dead zones are coloured blue or green.

Description of a scintigraphy of the heart.
All red or orange areas are normal, whereas the yellow
or blue areas do not have enough blood.

It is therefore easy for the physician to define an exact state of the heart muscle.

The physician can also assess the capacity of the cardiac muscle to relive after a myocardial infarction or a threat of infarct. The physicians call this notion, relatively modern in clinical practice, the “myocardial viability”.

The research of this viability makes it necessary to achieve radiological pictures before and after an exercise or the injection of a drug, but also requires carrying out pictures at 6 or 24 hours interval.

An area of viable cardiac muscle thus appears in blue or in green at the onset, then colours red or orange during an exercise or during the achievement of the belated pictures (a few hours later).

Reciprocally, an area appearing normal at rest (therefore red or orange) can become abnormal during an exercise and colourblue or green.

Scintigraphy of the heart during an exercise.
Note that some areas of the heart appear yellow,
whereas they were red during rest.

This exam is very important for the physician because it helps him to guide his treatment.

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File last modified on june 9, 2006