Hypoxia and Medicine

I had a Cardiolite Stress Test using a chemical stressor showing "inferior Ischemia" and "fixed apical defect"

I want to know what this means. I can't find an answer I can understand. I have an appt. with a cardiologist the day after tomorrow. Thank you

Public Comments

1. Wait for your appointment with your cardiologist. I think it means that you've probably had some kind of heart attack in the past, and likely still have coronary artery disease causing inferior ischemia. Ischemia is lack of blood flow to a certain area of your heart (the inferior part in your case), and usually correlates to a specific artery that provides blood to that part of the heart. Likely means your cardiologist will have a suggestion on how to help fix that one specific artery. Good luck!
2. The fixed defect, if it is not an artifact, indicates irreversible loss of blood flow generally reflecting a prior heart attack. Inferior ischemia indicates that the inferior surface or base of your heart has impaired blood flow due to a blocked artery that has not resulted in a heart attack.
3. You most likely have a blockage in the Right Coronary Artery. That artery supplies the right Ventricle, which lies next to the diaphragm. It is inferior to the left ventricle.. The fixed apical defect means that you have had a complete blockage, or an almost complete blockage to a terminal segment of the artery going to the very tip of your heart. Exercise is supposed to dilate your arteries. So a fixed defect means that there was no ability to dilate that segment and to deliver further blood to that area. That means that you had a previous infarction (heart attack). The inferior ischemia indicates that there is not enough blood flow to the inferior portion of your heart. But in this case, the exercise dilates the blood vessel enough that blood flow picks up. So there isn't a fixed defect. I suspect that there is, or are several blockages. The one that is downstream has done its damage. The upstream blockage might be amenable to surgery or a stent. Not all heart attacks cause the classic symptoms of chest pain, anxiety and feelings of doom, radiation of pain to the left side, sweating and nausea. In the case of Right ventricular heart attacks, they generally have an atypical presentation - often presenting with sever nausea or vomiting, hiccups, etc. That's because, as I said, it sits on the diaphragm and so it gets confused (by the brain) with GI or stomach problems. You don't say how symptomatic you are. but the fact that you have had the Cardiolite stress test indicates that your cardiologist was worried about giving you an all-out exercise stress test. He was worried that that might have precipitated another heart attack. My guess is that a heart catheterization is in line for you.