Sjogren's, coronary spasms, valve regurg. can't have mri; have interstim device. what is myocardial perfusion study? what does it show? ok for ist

Nuclear: Mpi is a nuclear medicine study where a radioactive tracer is given which the heart muscle uptakes and then images are obtained. This could be done with exercise or pharmacological stress agents to evaluate for coronary disease. It does not involve magnetic fields like MRI does.

Blood supply study: This is a study where they put a dye that goes to the blood vessels of the heart and goes to the areas supplied. It is done with exercise and at rest to see blood flow and resistance if clogged. The dye is seen by the special xr as the distribution of dye, areas with no dye lack perfusion as evaluated with scintigram and calculated by computer. This is the simplistic explanation.

Mapping blood vessel: Your heart cannot directly use the blood in the chambers, but must have the blood flowing through the arteries embedded in the wall/muscle of the heart itself. Perfusion study is to look at how well the muscle of the heart gets blood from these arteries. If the arteries are diseased/clogged up by atherosclerosis, the heart muscle can't get enough blood, especially on high demand. Good luck.