Thallium / Stress test found a scar , what is that?

Question

My husband is 43 yr old , perfectly healthy , exercise regularly but they found a scar at the Thallium / Stress test for the heart and they sent him to do a heart ultrasound . What means a scar on the heart ? He never had a heart condition or heart attack and his blood pressure/cholesterol is normal,as well as the weight .

He was sent to do a stress test because something came slightly abnormal on his routine EKG performed by the family dr

Sometimes he feels like a muscle pull in the left upper rib area and the doctor did an ekg and the result was borderline normal so she requested the stress test. During the treadmill test (B? method) the doctor had to stop because he already went 12 minutes with excellent results so the doctor said it was unnecessary to go more.

Answer 1

Did that same stress test show normal wall motion? Was the scar in the inferior section? If so, then the scar is probably an artifact and not real. Often times, radiologist especially will overread and call any defect on the scan a scar, even if it had normal wall motion. Normal wall motion makes it really unlikely the person has had a scar there--as scar means person has had a heart attack, and destroyed heart muscle.

By the way, why did he have a stress test? Stress testing in asymptomatic people is pretty much worthless.

Answer 2

Thallium looks at the flow of blood into the heart. A scar would be an area where the blood didn't flow, or which didn't move as well on the accompanying ECHO.
By far the most common cause of this scar would be a myocardial infarct "heart attack" at some point in the past.
Its quite possible to have a heart attack without symptoms severe enough to make you visit the hospital.

The alternative would be a very severe narrowing of the artery that supplies this area without actually having infarction, however if this were the case its likely your husband would often experience exertional chest pain.

The things that led up to the scan and the symptoms your husband is having now would be important in deciding what to do next.

Doctors generally don't mind being asked questions and will have a lot more information about your husbands case at their finger tips.

Answer 3

The scar could represent an old heart attack. This abnormality could also represent a primary disease of the heart muscle or attenuation from nearby anatomical structures. If this result truly represents a scar in the heart muscle, you are at increased risk from a cardiac stand point. However, these tests are not perfect and sometimes show an abnormal result when there is no disease and a normal result when there is disease. Given your age and what sounds like few cardiac risk factors this may likely represent a false positive result. A false positive result is an abnormal test result in the absence of disease.
your result could be a false positive. Although, a left heart catheterization is not an unreasonable idea, you may consider having a PET scan done first. A PET scan is non-invasive nuclear test which is more reliable than the thallium scan. Hope this helps.

Answer 4

If the test was done with MYOVIEW (Thallium+Tc99), the scar on the heart can be due to depreviation of myocardium of blood.
Obstruction of blood supply to the heart results in scar formation.
SOME of the heart attacks occur during the night and patient is unaware of it, and he carries out his normal routine.
Let his physician sort out his problem of his scar.

Answer 5

1

Answer 6

Don't hold a baby for 24 hours. The drugs pass out of your system in a day.