You will rest for about 45 minutes and will even have a small snack, then you will be positioned so that the gamma camera can take images that show the blood flow to your heart while resting. On the first day, you will need to fast for four hours prior to the appointment and then the radiopharmaceutical is injected into your arm vein while seated. MPI is a two-part exam, performed over two days. This allows a special gamma camera to take pictures of your heart and assess blood flow at rest and exercise. Areas of the heart with good blood flow take up more radiopharmaceutical than areas which have poor blood flow or have been damaged by a heart attack. Sometimes called a nuclear stress test, during MPI a radioactive material (radiopharmaceutical) is injected intravenously and taken up by your heart muscle as it flows through the heart arteries.
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It can also indicate whether you’ve previously had a heart attack and how much heart muscle has been damaged from that attack. MPI looks at the amount of blood in your heart muscle at rest and during exercise, evaluating if arteries are blocked and how many. It can assess whether your symptoms are caused by lack of blood flow to the heart muscle due to narrowed or blocked heart arteries. MPI is a non-invasive way to examine how well blood flows through (perfuses) your heart muscle (myocardium). Chest discomfort is a common symptom of heart concerns, so your doctor may request Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (MPI) to investigate the cause.