Incidence of sudden cardiac death is rising in society rapidly. Age of incidence is reducing day by day. Now is a day when doctors are seeing young people having heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths. Increasing incidence of atherosclerotic diseases have made it necessary to do preventive cardiac health check ups.

Who should get TMT done ?

Everyone, after age of 50 should undergo TMT as a part of cardiac health check up. If normal, it should be repeated once every 3 years. Those who had previous heart attacks or have undergone cardiac revascularization should get it done once a year for prognosis. People having significant cardiovascular risk factors like obesity, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia should get it checked at early age.

How is treadmill test done ?

Person should preferably avoid solid food for four hours. Plain water is allowed. Caffeine should be avoided 12 hours prior. Chest leads are applied and after taking vital signs, one has to walk on treadmill machine. Speed and slope increase gradually and ECG is constantly being monitored. Vital signs are checked periodically. Test can be stopped when Target heart rate is achieved. Target heart rate is measured as 220 – Age. If a person achieves 85 % of heart rate without significant ECG changes, test can be termed negative. Treadmill should be stopped when patient develops chest pain, severe breathlesness, significant fatigue or develops significant ECG changes like ST depression of 2 mm or arrhythmia.

What does positive and negative TMT mean ?

Chances of significant coronary artery disease is very high if TMT is strongly positive. Those having mile positive test should undergo risk modifications like avoiding smoking, controlling BP and sugar, normalising cholesterol and repeating test after 3 months. Negative TMT rules out significant coronary artery disease in most of the cases. 10 % people have significant coronary artery disease and negative TMT.