My wife’s grandmother just underwent a medical test. Seems to have been, at least in part, to investigate heart blockage. My father-in-law’s trying to find its name so he can research it online.
What we know about it is this: they took blood from her, mixed in some sort of radioactive stuff, then put it back into her and observed from there.
My FIL thinks the phrase ‘MAU-A’ may be some sort of identifier for it, but he hasn’t been able to find any references to that in various medical sites online, and Google isn’t any help either.
So if anyone can tell us the name of this test, or anything else about it, we’d mucho appreciate it.
Sounds like an angiogram to me. It would involve a cardiac catheterization. The next step, if significant blockage is found might be angioplasty with possible placement of a stent (make sure they use a Johnson and Johnson drug-coated stent) or possible bypass surgery.
Medscape and WebMD are excellent places to look these things up. Best of luck to your wife’s grandma!
What pjd’s links pointed to. Your grandmother-in-law had a MUGA scan, which stands for “multigated [or ‘multiple gated’] acquisition”. Pronounced like…we native Bostonians would pronounce “mugger”: Mug-a.
It’s radionucleotide heart imaging - it can provide a level of detail regarding heart function and blood flow not possible on a standard angiogram. The radioactive isotopes can be ‘seen’ by the scanner, giving a good picture of how well the heart is pumping, what the bloof flow through the main chambers looks like (any valve problems?) and how the flow is (any narrowing, blockages etc?).
There are a number of sites with info. Google under ‘MUGA’, ‘nuclear venticulography’, ‘radionucleotide [or radionuclide] ventriculography’…
Actually it’s really not as good as a cardiac catheterization (angiogram). The cath is pretty much the gold standard, but has greater associated risks. So we use MUGAs, myoviews, adenosine stress thalliums, etc all trying to get some info on heart function and coronary artery status without the dangers of a heart cath.
But when one really needs to know what’s up with the heart, that’s when one wants a cardiac angiogram, including coronary artery studies and ventriculary angiography.