Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 14, 2020; 26(10): 1088-1097
Published online Mar 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i10.1088
Technetium-99m-labeled macroaggregated albumin lung perfusion scan for diagnosis of hepatopulmonary syndrome: A prospective study comparing brain uptake and whole-body uptake
He Zhao, Jiaywei Tsauo, Xiao-Wu Zhang, Huai-Yuan Ma, Ning-Na Weng, Gong-Shun Tang, Xiao Li
He Zhao, Jiaywei Tsauo, Xiao-Wu Zhang, Xiao Li, Department of Interventional Therapy, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
He Zhao, Huai-Yuan Ma, Ning-Na Weng, Xiao Li, Department of Gastroenterology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Gong-Shun Tang, Department of Nuclear Medicine, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Zhao H, Tsauo J, Weng NN, Zhang XW and Tang GS performed the research; Ma HY analyzed the data; Li X and Tsauo J designed and coordinated the research; Zhao H wrote the paper.
Supported by National Key R and D Program of China, No. 2017YFC0107800; CAMS Initiative for Innovative Medicine, No. 2016-12M-2-004.
Institutional review board statement: This prospective study was approved by the institutional review board of West China Hospital (Identifier, 2014-234).
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The guidelines of the CONSORT 2010 Statement have been adopted.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xiao Li, MD, PhD, Doctor, Postdoc, Professor, Department of Interventional Therapy, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, 17 Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100021, China. simonlixiao@gmail.com
Received: November 14, 2019
Peer-review started: November 14, 2019
First decision: December 30, 2019
Revised: January 6, 2020
Accepted: January 19, 2020
Article in press: January 19, 2020
Published online: March 14, 2020
Processing time: 121 Days and 12 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Hepatopulmonary syndrome is a common complication of liver disease that impairs the lungs’ ability to oxygenate blood, leading to debilitating symptoms, such as shortness of breath. Intrapulmonary vascular dilations, a hallmark of hepatopulmonary syndrome, can be detected using technetium-99m-labeled macroaggregated albumin lung perfusion scan; however, of the two most commonly used methods of result interpretation (i.e., brain uptake and whole-body uptake), it is unclear which is more accurate. In this study of 69 patients with liver cirrhosis, we found that whole-body uptake is more accurate than brain uptake for detecting intrapulmonary vascular dilations.