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A cardiac stress test is a cardiological examination that evaluates the cardiovascular system's response to external stress within a controlled clinical setting. This stress response can be induced through physical exercise (usually a treadmill) or intravenous pharmacological stimulation of heart rate.
With a maximal stress test the level of exercise is increased until the person's heart rate will not increase any higher, despite increased exercise. A fairly accurate estimate of the target heart rate, based on extensive clinical research, can be estimated by the formula 220 beats per minute minus patient's age.
The test score is the time taken on the test, in minutes. This can also be converted to an estimated maximal oxygen uptake score using the calculator below and the following formulas, where the value "T" is the total time completed (expressed in minutes and fractions of a minute e.g. 9 minutes 15 seconds = 9.25 minutes).
If a doctor deems it necessary, a stress TTE may be performed. It can be accomplished by either exercising on a bike or treadmill, or by medicine given through an IV along with a contrast agent to make the bodily fluids show up brighter. It allows a comparison between the heart at rest and the heart when it is beating at a faster rate.
The next step is pacing the heart, this means he/she will speed up or slow down the heart by placing the electrode at certain points along the conductive pathways of the heart and control the depolarization rate of the heart. The doctor will pace each chamber of the heart one by one, looking for any abnormalities.
Myocardial perfusion imaging or scanning (also referred to as MPI or MPS) is a nuclear medicine procedure that illustrates the function of the heart muscle (). [1]It evaluates many heart conditions, such as coronary artery disease (CAD), [2] hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and heart wall motion abnormalities.