Thallium Stress Test

[BritLion]

I had a thallium stress test a week ago.  Now I'm setting off radioactive alarms at the facility where I work which is a heavily secure building.  How long will the thallium remain in my body?

[kenkeith]

The sensitivity of alarms may vary from one installation to another and ratings continue to increase due to increased risk.  After a Thallium Stress test, with the alarm sensitivity rating at the White House, an individual continued to set of the alarm for 30 days  Your high security building may have the same rating. It can/will remain in your system for about 71 days.  

[ed34]

When I had a CT andio and normal angiography in the same week, I'm surprised that I didn't glow in the dark. They made me wait a month before a nuclear scan.

[erijon]

Thallium stress tests utilize thallium-201, with a physical half-life of about three days. This means that the activity or emissions from a vial of thallium-201 will decrease by half every three days. Thus, after three days, the activity will be one-half of the initial activity. After six days it will be about one-fourth of the initial activity, and so forth. It could take up to about 30 days for the activity in this vial to decrease to levels that are no longer measurable above natural background radiation levels.

In addition, when thallium-201 is injected into the blood during a stress test, the thallium rapidly leaves the blood by uptake in the cells of all organs and tissues in the body. Over time, the thallium eventually is excreted by way of the gastrointestinal tract 80% and through the urine 20%. The International Commission on Radiological Protection notes that 63% of injected thallium chemical will leave the body with a biological-half life, which is how long it takes for half of the amount of a chemical to clear from the body, of seven days. The remaining 37% will leave the body with a much longer biological half-life of 28 days. Therefore, thallium chemical will clear from the body with about a 10-day overall biological half-life.


Hope this helps.........

Jon