Mechanism of splenomegaly in chronic liver disease: Relationship between the spleen/liver count ratio in an arterial phase of Tc-99m GSA scintigraphy and splenic volume

Abstract

It is obvious that an increase of splenic arterial blood flow contributes to splenomegaly in chronic liver disease, but it remains obscure how and why the increment occurs. We performed Tc-99m GSA scintigraphy and compared the radioactivity counts between the liver and spleen at 30 seconds after intravenous infusion in 29 patients with chronic liver disease. In addition, we measured the spleen volume of these patients by CT: a spurious spleen volume deduced from the lengths along three-dimensional axes. As a result, the spleen/liver radioactivity ratio (corresponding to blood flow ratio) showed a positive correlation with the spurious spleen volume. Namely, the bigger the spleen was, the higher the spleen/liver arterial blood flow ratio would be. Thus, our present results suggest that hepatic arterial hemodynamics may be involved in the mechanism of splenomegaly in chronic liver disease.