thallium scans and false positives

[Jeff Summers]

Hi. This is my first posting I had a 6 cm anuerysm and a St Judes Aortic valve replacement surgery on 6/7/00. I had a heart cath done prior to surgery, and the Doc said he could drive a Mac truck through my coronary arteries, but the valve and anuerysm nned to be fixed. That surgery went fine. On 6/7/01 I had my one year anniversary at my cardiologist office with a Thallium Treadmill, 2-d echo and abdominal aortic sonogram. Thallium treadmill results say that the heart muscle is not getting PROPER BLOOD FLOW, and they want me on nitro. I am a 39 year old male, I have no chest pains, I made 14 minutes on the treadmill-at the end running up an 18 degree incline. I hear that Thallium test can give false positives. I meet with the Doc on 6/18/01 and I really don't want to take the nitro.
Anybody else out there have this happen to them?
Coumadin and a baby aspirin are the only drug that I am currently on.

 

[ALCapshaw]

Thallium Stress Test

Thallium Stress Test

Hi Jeff,

14 minutes on the treadmill sounds awfully good to me, assuming the standard protocol. I would want a clarification of the results from the Doctor. Did you have your test done at a facility that does LOTS of these tests on a daily basis? Typically, the more they do, the better they are. Your results make me wonder if they got the right dose of Thallium. Is there any way they can replot your data? If not, I suspect the only way to really know is to repeat the test, or have another cath...I would take another thallium test before subjecting to another (unneeded) cath. Our cardiology center quit using Thallium some time ago. The new standard is Cardiolite.

Good luck,

'AL'

 

[Jeff Summers]

I have new facts and data today. Test performed at Cardiologist office-they do around 6 a day, and the lady doing it has 20+ years of exp. Test results were e-mailed to my Doc, who is out of the office. The tech is on VAC, and when I asked the nurse pointed questions as to where the flow problem area was, she could not answer them. I questioned the baseline data-my cath from just 1 year earlier- and asked if they had compared the thallium results to these-had not, and genearlly don't, this test stands alone. The nurse did get a chance to talk to Doc late yesterday, and when he was reminded of the Cath results, he said that the thallium must be a false positive, and withdrew the nitro script, but He still wants to see me Monday morning to discuss test results. My put is-if it doesn't hurt, leave it alone. I know my body, and I am not having any chest pains that I think would be associated with a blood flow issue, but these guys are the Doctors. I'm more paranoid about anuerysms poping up. Before my surgery, I new about the valve-I had a cath when I was 14-but I did not know about the anuerysm. I had no pain, but was noticing some shortness of breath, which led to all of the tests/diagnosis.