How safe is an Isotope Treadmill Stress Test?
The patient is exposed to a very small amount of radiation and the risk is minimal, if any. The risk of the stress portion of the test is very small and similar to what you would expect from any strenuous form of exercise (jogging in your neighborhood, running up a flight of stairs, etc.). As noted earlier, experienced medical staff is in attendance to manage rare complications like sustained abnormal heart rhythm, unrelieved chest pain or even a heart attack. In such cases, the patient is better off having the problem in the presence of experienced staff, rather than have it happen when they are exercising alone. What is the reliability of an Isotope Stress Test? If a patient is able to achieve the target heart rate and good quality images are obtained, an isotope treadmill stress test is capable of diagnosing important disease in approximately 85% of patients with coronary artery Approximately 10% of patients may have a “false-positive” test (when the result is falsely abnormal in a
