Abstract
We investigated high-density area (HDA) in the stomach on abdominal CT in hemodialysis patients with lanthanum therapy. We examined abdominal CT results of 173 examinations in 70 patients during the therapy; 67 of these 173 examinations (39%) in 42 patients (60%) showed HDA in the stomach. The duration of lanthanum therapy in patients with an HDA was significantly longer than that in patients without it (p<0.01). Furthermore, the duration of lanthanum therapy was positively correlated with the grade of HDA (p<0.0001). We performed gastric endoscopy in 4 cases. It showed white thickening of the gastric mucosa along the fold. Pathological findings of biopsy showed the tissue deposition of lanthanum with macrophages. The presence of lanthanum in the gastric mucosa was confirmed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Eight months after discontinuation of lanthanum therapy, two cases were examined by CT and one of them also underwent gastric endoscopy. The HDA or white thickening of the gastric mucosa persisted in the findings for these procedures. Our findings suggest that further investigations of the influence of lanthanum carbonate on gastric mucosa are needed.
