What does artifact mean on a stress test?
Answer • An artifact, in this context, is anything that can keep the test from being interpreted correctly. People often think of medical tests as definitive — the stress test shows that either you have blockages in the arteries in your heart or you don’t — but it usually is not so clear.
What is diaphragmatic attenuation mean?
Abstract. Avoidance of falsely positive results depends on distinguishing reality from artifact, in turn depending on images of highest quality. In radionuclide cardiac imaging, an inferior wall artifactual defect, so called “diaphragmatic attenuation”, is particularly common and vexing.
What is an artifact in the heart?
Electrocardiograph (EKG) artifacts are defined as EKG abnormalities, which are a measurement of cardiac potentials on the body surface and are not related to electrical activity of the heart. As a result of artifacts, normal components of the EKG can be distorted.
What does breast artifact mean?
Breast artifacts are the most frequent causes of false positive planar images in female subjects. Superimposition of breast tissue over the heart may result in linear areas of relatively increased activity, which is believed to be caused by small-angle scatter from the breast tissue fold.
What is a diaphragmatic attenuation artifact?
“Attenuation artifact” observed in a nuclear stress test is due to the reduction in the intensity / strength of signal when it travels through various body tissues of different densities, such as breast tissues, chest wall, and organs under the diaphragm.
What is the cause of artifact?
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) artifact usually results from electrical power lines, electrical equipment, and mobile telephones. In the United States this is sometimes referred to as 60 cycle interference (or 60 Hz pickup).
What does diaphragmatic attenuation artifact mean?
What is a reversible defect on a stress test?
A coronary stenosis is detected when a myocardial segment takes up the nuclear tracer at rest, but not during cardiac stress. This is called a “reversible defect.” Scarred myocardium from prior infarct will not take up tracer at all and is referred to as a “fixed defect.”
What does artifact mean in medical terms?
In medical imaging, artifacts are misrepresentations of tissue structures produced by imaging techniques such as ultrasound, X-ray, CT scan, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Physicians typically learn to recognize some of these artifacts to avoid mistaking them for actual pathology.
What does soft tissue attenuation artifact mean?
After a stress test, your physician may mention that you have “soft tissue artifact,” or “soft tissue attenuation.” What this means is that soft tissue, such as breast tissue, is showing up on the image created by the stress test.
What is an artifact in medical terms?
What can cause artifact on ECG?
Causes of electrical artifacts on ECGs are manifold. External artifacts are usually caused by line current, which has a frequency of 50 Hz or 60 Hz. Internal electrical artifacts can be caused by tremors, muscle shivering, hiccups or, as in the present case, medical devices.
What does diaphragmatic attenuation in a heart attack mean?
What does diaphragmatic attenuation mean? A term used in forms of radio graphic imaging, it denotes an actual or apparent lack of blood flow of the heart muscle potentially caused by the muscles that control the diaphragm. May be an actual lack of bloodflow or not, if it is, it may indicate a prior heart attack. Click to see full answer.
What does attenuation mean in a nuclear stress test?
“ Attenuation artifact ” observed in a nuclear stress test is due to the reduction in the intensity / strength of signal when it travels through various body tissues of different densities, such as breast tissues, chest wall, and organs under the diaphragm. What does soft tissue attenuation mean?
Is the diaphragm a medically significant misnomer?
Diaphragm is of no significance and a misnomer, but further evaluation for posterior myocardium attenuation (medically significant) to determine if there is a posterior defect and rule out an artifact. “It is suggested that a male with a flat, wide chest is more prone to posterior myocardial attenuation.
Why does the diaphragm obscure the bottom of the heart?
The diaphragm (sheet of muscle that separates the heart and the tummy structures) can sometimes obscure the bottom part of the heart during nuclear stress testing, and could potentially give rise to abnormal stress test result (a defect).