What is a Cardiac Perfusion Scan?
A cardiac perfusion scan is a test that is used to estimate the amount of blood reaching the heart muscle during rest and exercise. For this test, a radioactive substance called a tracer is injected into a vein in the arm. A special camera is used to view the amount of tracer that reaches the heart muscle. Stress scans involve making two sets of images: rest images and stress images. Rest images are taken while the patient is at rest and stress images are taken after the heart has been stressed either through exercise or by using medication to induce stress.
