Imaging the blood flow to the heart helps decide whether a patient with chest pain really has a heart problem.

Each year, more than six million people in the US present to the emergency room with chest pain. Many do not have a heart attack or angina - but must be thoroughly investigated all the same. Often this means hospitalization.

Researchers at Tufts-New England Medical Center carried out a study of the impact of imaging the blood supply to the heart. In myocardial perfusion imaging, a small amount of radioactive dye is injected, and then a camera is used to track the radiation released - so creating an image of the heart muscle. This lets the doctor see if there is reduced blood flow to the heart - a sign of heart attack or angina.

In the current study, a group of 2,475 patients with chest pain had either imaging with usual care, or usual care alone. Among those who had heart attack or angina, there was no difference in the diagnosis between the two groups. But for those whose chest pain was not cardiac, having imaging reduced hospitalizations from 52 per cent to 42 per cent. Evidently the imaging technique is a useful step forward in rapid diagnosis of chest pain.

Source

Journal of the American Medical Association 4th December 2002