false positive stress test results

can breast tissue get in the way and cause a false positive stress test result?

[e.r.boy]

I had a false positive on my nuclear stress test. when I did my angiogram the nurse said up to 50% of nuclear stress tests are false positive. Great technology !

[erijon]

While myocardial perfusion imaging greatly enhances the sensitivity and specificity of exercise testing, false positive and negative results are known to occur. False negative imaging is especially common when exercise is submaximal or in dipyridamole/adenosine studies of patients with severe obstructions of all three major coronary vessels. False positive scanning may be caused by signal attenuation from an elevated left hemidiaphragm or from breast tissue. These artifactual defects can be identified by performing a gated perfusion study to assess regional wall motion.

Also, the accuracy rate for a Nuclear stress test is actually 85% but has a much higher sensitivity and specificity rate meainng that it will more likely dectect CAD in those that have the disease and will not in those that do not. These rates run in the low to mid 90% range.

Hope this helps.

Jon