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Title: Scintigraphic diagnosis of tricuspid regurgitation

Journal Article · · Radiology; (United States)

The authors describe a simple technique for diagnosis of tricuspid regurgitation. Red blood cells were labeled in vivo with /sup 99m/Tc and 22 patients were studied with ECG-gated blood-pool imaging of the liver. A single region of interest was manually drawn around the liver and a time-activity curve obtained. The per cent change in liver counts during the cardiac cycle was found to be significantly higher in the 12 patients with tricuspid regurgitation (Group I) (mean, 4.04 +/- 1.6%; range, 1.3-21.4%) compared with the 10 controls (Group II) (mean, 0.35 +/- 0.16%; range, 0.013-1.3%) (p less than 0.05). Using a 1% change in liver counts as the criterion of a positive study, all 12 cases in Group I were diagnosed correctly, but there was one false positive in Group II; thus the sensitivity was 100% and the specificity 90%.

Research Organization:
Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
OSTI ID:
6794982
Journal Information:
Radiology; (United States), Vol. 145:2
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English