Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S S Tu'meh.
A patient with pseudomyxoma peritonei secondary to a mucin-secreting adenocarcinoma demonstrated striking, diffuse uptake of 99mTc-MDP throughout the abdomen. The radiopharmaceutical distribution accurately delineated the region of tumor involvement within the peritoneal cavity.
Bleeding from angiodysplasia of the gastrointestinal tract has become widely recognized. In most patients there is a single focal lesion in the colon. Small bowel involvement is rare and usually associated with colonic lesions. There have been no reports of bleeding angiodysplasia affecting the small bowel only. We were able to detect bleeding from an isolated angiodysplasia of the jejunum and correctly localize it. Our diagnosis was greatly aided by the use of dynamic data collection and by the cinematic display of the data.
The authors describe a simple technique for diagnosis of tricuspid regurgitation. Red blood cells were labeled in vivo with 99mTc 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%.
Utilizing mathematical techniques and computer processing similar to those employed in x-ray transmission computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, cross-sectional images of radiopharmaceutical distribution are demonstrating encouraging maps of organ physiology and pathophysiology. The basic concepts of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and some of its clinical implications, are presented to demonstrate the potential applications of this new modality.