Nuclear Stress Test

This is a nuclear medicine imaging test that can be used to help diagnose and manage heart disease. Patients undergoing a nuclear stress test are first injected with radioactive “tracer” via IV, which may take some time to be sufficiently absorbed by the body before the imaging studies can begin. Next, the patient lies flat on a table while the circular SPECT machine rotates around him or her, taking pictures of the internal structures and recreating them in three dimensional detail on a computer screen.