Ice cream pretreatment improves myocardial sestamibi imaging

October 18, 2002

Last Updated: 2002-10-17 16:01:16 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Gonzalo Argandoña

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters Health) - Eating ice cream before sestamibi

nuclear studies of the heart improves the quality of the images

obtained, according to study results presented here this week at the 8th

Congress of the World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology.

The procedure has a high acceptance rate with both patients and

technicians. " Considering the low risk of this intervention, the high

acceptance by patients and the low cost, I would recommend the use of

ice cream, " Dr. Rob , lead author of the investigation, told

Reuters Health.

Dr. , chief technologist in the Department of Nuclear Medicine

at Wangaratta Hospital, in Australia, noted that sestamibi has many

advantages compared with other nuclear medicine agents. However, it has

some limitations, such as the inferior uptake from the diaphragm,

stomach and bowel that makes interpretation difficult and can obscure a

defect in the inferior margin of the heart, Dr. noted. Another

problem is liver uptake, which can also cause defects in the cardiac

image, he added.

To counter the problem of inferior uptake, patients have been given " ice

slushies " before the procedure, and for the liver uptake difficulty, a

fatty meal. " We thought that ice cream could combine the properties from

ice slushies and a fatty meal, so we decided to test it, " Dr.

commented during his presentation at the meeting.

He and his colleagues recruited 64 volunteers to test this approach.

Twenty-eight subjects were given ice cream before receiving an injection

of 99mTc-sestamibi while the other 36 volunteers received the same dose

of sestamibi but no ice cream.

The Australian researchers concluded that the ice cream reduced the

inferior gastrointestinal uptake of sestamibi by 30% and the liver

uptake by 14%, thereby improving the quality of the myocardial images.

Given the small sample size of his investigation, Dr.

recommends further studies and replication of data at other sites. " In

the near future, we would like to compare the effect of ice cream with

other meals, " he said.

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