Abstract
Sequential abdominal scintigrams with ^<99m>Tc-labelled red blood cells (RBC) were subtracted for observing a site of gastrointestinal bleeding and calculating the bleeding rate. This method is technically very easy and can detect the site of bleeding with the minimum rate, as low as 0.2ml/min., in a phantom experiment. In 23 cases with final diagnosis of gastrointestinal bleeding, conventional non-subtraction scintigraphy detected only 30% (7/23), but subtraction scintigraphy detected 61% (14/23). It was concluded that subtraction scintigraphy had higher sensitivity than conventional scintigraphy for early diagnosing of bleeding. A combination of nonsubtraction and subtraction scintigraphy is recommended to detect a site of gastrointesitinal bleeding in a clinical setting.
