Stress MUGA studies (exercise gated blood pool imaging) use an ECG machine while imaging your heart. The result of the scans is a movie of your beating heart, which will allow your physician to assess how well it is pumping blood.
When you schedule your appointment, you will be given a time for a 12-lead EKG, which will be completed before your stress MUGA study. The 12-lead EKG will be performed in the Cardiology Department and after, you will go to the Nuclear Medicine Department for the stress MUGA study.
When you arrive for your stress MUGA appointment, you will receive an injection that will allow the radioactive tracer to "hook" into your blood. About 20 to 30 minutes after this injection, a small vial of your blood is drawn and allowed to mix with a radioactive tracer. About ten minutes later, your blood, with the radioactive tracer, is injected back into your body.
There are two parts to this test, a resting study and an exercise study