Usefulness of technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime lung scan to detect inhalation lung injury of patients with pulmonary symptoms/signs but negative chest radiograph and pulmonary function test findings after a fire accident--a preliminary report.
OBJECTIVE
In this study, we employed technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (99mTc HMPAO) lung scan to detect inhalation lung injury of patients after a fire accident.


METHODS
Ten healthy men for controls and 10 male patients with pulmonary symptoms/signs from a fire accident were enrolled in this study for comparison. 99mTc HMPAO lung scan was performed in each control and patient, as well as the degree of pulmonary vascular endothelium damage was represented as lung/liver uptake ratios (L/L ratio). All of the controls and patients had no smoking histories. None of the controls and patients had positive findings of plain chest radiograph (CXR) and pulmonary function test (PFT).


RESULTS
The results showed that significantly higher L/L ratio in the 10 patients (0.53 +/- 0.07) than in the 10 controls (0.30 +/- 0.07) (the p value < 0.05). Using a cut-off value of 0.40, all of the 10 patients had abnormally increased L/L ratios.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that 99mTc HMPAO lung scan has the potential to be a sensitive, objective and noninvasive method to detect inhalation lung injury of patients with pulmonary symptoms/signs but negative CXR and PFT findings after a fire accident.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Yu-Chien
YC
Shiau
Feng-Yuan
FY
Liu
Jeffrey J P
JJ
Tsai
Jhi-Joung
JJ
Wang
Shung-Tai
ST
Ho
Albert
A
Kao
D000059:Accidents; D000328:Adult; D002059:Burns, Inhalation / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005390:Fires; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D055370:Lung Injury; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013902:Radiography, Thoracic; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015208:Smoke Inhalation Injury / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D019690:Technetium Tc 99m Exametazime
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019690:Technetium Tc 99m Exametazime