RE: Radioisotopes in Medical Cardiac Testing

["Roy C. Craft, CHP" <rcraft@wcnet.net>]

Two weeks ago when I went for a stress test, I was told that I was going to
have  thallium Stress Test.  When I got there, I was told that they were not
going to use thallium but something not radioactive- "Cardio-lite".   I
assured them that I thought that Cardio-Lite was radioactive, and they
thought that perhaps I was right, but this one "went away" much sooner.  I
explained that my only problem was if I had to enter an RCA soon, which I
didn't, and that I was not concerned, but would like to know what isotope
was involved.  The Nuclear Technician came in about them and everything was
OK.

Not everyone is informed of the messy details of the procedure.

Roy C. Craft, CHP
mailto:rcraft@wcnet.net

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
[mailto:radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu]On Behalf Of North, David
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 1:43 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: RE: Radioisotopes in Medical Cardiac Testing


In answer to the medical questions:

1) snip

2) The patients are always informed that they are receiving small quantities
of radioactive material as radiopharmaceuticals. The nuclear medicine
technologist who administers the radiopharmaceutical will generally not be
aware of the patient's occupation.

3) The whole body dose will be roughly 0.5 rad regardless of the
radionuclide used since longer lived radionuclides will be given in smaller
amounts of activity.
<SNIP>

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