Cardiac Blood Pool Scan

Overview :

A cardiac blood pool scan is sometimes called equilibrium radionuclide angiocardiography or gated (synchronized) cardiac blood pool imaging. A multiplegated acquisition (MUGA) scan is a variation of this test.

To perform a cardiac blood pool scan, the patient lies under a special gamma scintillation camera that detects radiation. A protein tagged with a radioactive marker (usually technetium-99m) is injected into the patient's forearm.

The camera is synchronized with an electrocardiogram (ECG) to take a picture at specific times in the cycle of heart contraction and relaxation. When data from many sequential pictures is processed by a computer, a doctor can analyze whether the left ventricle is functioning normally.

The patient needs to remain silent and motionless during the test. Sometimes the patient is asked to exercise, then another set of pictures is taken for comparison. This test normally takes about 30 minutes.