title: The clinical significance of gall-bladder non-visualization in cholescintigraphy of patients with choledochal cysts.
abstract: Intravenous radionuclide cholescintigraphy (IVRC) provides a very specific picture for choledochal cysts. However, the clinical significance of the non-visualization of the gall-bladder (GB) activity in these cases is unclear. In this study, we reviewed 27 patients with choledochal cysts who underwent IVRC within 7 days prior to operation and correlated the GB findings on IVRC with the histopathological results. In 18 of the 27 patients (66.7%), there was non-visualization of the GB at 4 h post injection. Among these, two had histopathological features of acute cholecystitis (AC), 11 had chronic cholecystitis (CC), and five had normal GBs. In the other nine patients with visualization of the GB, there were five cases of CC and four normal GBs. If we apply the finding of non-visualization of the GB at 4 h post injection as the criterion for the diagnosis of AC, the diagnostic accuracy was only 40.7% (11/27). We concluded that: (1) GB disease (AC and CC) was common (66.7%: 7.4% and 59.3% respectively) in choledochal cyst patients. (2) Non-visualization of the GB on IVRC did not necessarily indicate AC in choledochal cyst cases, and the diagnostic accuracy was low. (3) GB disease is not the only cause of GB non-visualization on IVRC. A huge choledochal cyst causing a mass or reservoir effect may be a cause of GB compression and result in non-visualization of the GB.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: K Y
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Tzen
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: You
authors.forename: Y F
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Liaw
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002764:Cholecystitis / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D015529:Choledochal Cyst / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D005704:Gallbladder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007098:Imino Acids; D008297:Male; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D019785:Technetium Tc 99m Disofenin; D019780:Technetium Tc 99m Lidofenin; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D007098:Imino Acids; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019780:Technetium Tc 99m Lidofenin; D019785:Technetium Tc 99m Disofenin