Radionuclide evaluation of cardiac trauma

Radionuclides were first used in the evaluation of myocardial trauma as a noninvasive means to detect hemopericardium. At present an important use is in the diagnosis of myocardial contusion, which can be difficult to recognize clinically, and often has nonspecific EKG and enzyme alterations. Technetium-99m pyrophosphate scintigraphy has been shown to be of significant value in confirming this diagnosis. Myocardial scintigrams are helpful in determining the degree of damage produced by penetrating wounds of the heart and can also detect electrical injury to the heart from accidental shock or cardioversion. In addition, multiple gated blood pool scans can determine the hemodynamic significance of mycardial trauma and evaluate for late sequelae such as aneurysm formation.