I had a nuclear stress test the other day (because i was having some chest pain/pressure and pain down my left arm). i had a nuclear stress test the other day (because i was having some chest pain/pressure and pain down my left arm). i had a heart attack

Thank : Thank you for your excellent question. Your situation is illustrative of a common dilemma in medicine -- the issue of incidental findings on tests ordered for other reasons. Your nuclear stress test involved injecting a radioactive tracer into your blood stream that is emitted by tissues in your body and captured on a detector (camera). The tracer is designed to localize to the heart, but can be taken up by other tissues for various reasons. The nuclear stress test is non-specific for other types of lesions, and so cannot diagnose your particular lesion. It sounds like the lesion is in your breast or the portion of your lung just below your breast. This may be the same lesion seen on your ct scan. Your primary care doctor should be made aware of the finding, and consideration given to more definitive testing (e.g. Repeat ct scan or tissue biopsy). Oftentimes these lesions turn out to be benign, but they are an unfortunate "side effect" of medical imaging in that they cause anxiety and require further testing. This issue is precisely why generic "body scans" or "heart scans" advertized on tv and the radio are so controversial.