title: The role of quantitative 99Tcm-glucoheptonate scintigraphy in the evaluation of acute uveitis in patients with Behçet's disease.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of quantitative 99Tcm-glucoheptonate (99Tcm-GH) scintigraphy in the assessment of patients with Behçet's disease who suffered from ocular inflammation (uveitis). The study consisted of 13 patients with uveitis and five control subjects. There were a total of 25 eyes with chronic uveitis. Of these 25 eyes, 10 were in a state of remission, and the other 15 were in an acute phase of the illness. The study was performed by administering 370 MBq (10 mCi) 99Tcm-GH intravenously. Planar images were acquired 6 h later. Eye/scalp indices were quantified by drawing regions of interest (ROIs) around each eye and normalizing the mean counts per pixel by the mean counts in the scalp. The mean eye/scalp indices were 1.87 +/- 0.19 in controls and 1.98 +/- 0.19 in the affected eyes that were in remission (P = 0.23, nonsignificant). However, during the acute phase of the illness, the mean eye/scalp index was 2.18 +/- 0.28. The difference between controls and the eyes that were in the acute phase of the illness was significant (one way analysis of variance, P = 0.007). The mean value of the index for affected eyes in remission was not significantly different to that for eyes in the acute phase (P = 0.068, nonsignificant). These preliminary findings suggest that, despite previously published reports in animals with experimentally induced uveitis, 99Tcm-GH scintigraphy may not be a very sensitive method for evaluating human ocular inflammations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Istanbul University Medical School, Turkey.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mudun
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Mudun
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kocak
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Durlu
authors.forename: S N
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Unal
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cantez
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D013400:Sugar Acids; D014605:Uveitis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology
chemical_list: D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D013400:Sugar Acids; C100014:technetium Tc 99m gluceptate