Abstract
We developed a method to determine the plasma disappearance rate (K) and the 15 minute retention rate (R15) of indocyanine green (ICG) using a photopiece applied on a finger tip (finger tip method). In this study we evaluated this method in various liver diseases and compared results with those from the conventional blood sampling method (conventional method). K values of the finger tip method were 0.173±0.03 for the control, 0.123±0.028 in acute hepatitis (AH), 0.115±0.037 in chronic hepatitis (CH) and 0.064±0.03 in liver cirrhosis (LC). R15 values revealed 8.3±4.05% for the control, 17.1±6.87% in AH, 20.4±10.27% in CH and 42.2±16.86% in LC. Both values in CH group showed a significant differences (p<0.05) to values of the control group and LC group, and value of the LC group showed a significant difference to that of control group (p<0.01). Values for k and R15 obtained by the finger piece method correlated significantly with those in the conventional method: y=0.918x-0.003 (r=0.926, p<0.01) for K and y=1.15x+1.196 (r=0.962, p<0.01) for R15. From these results we concluded that the finger piece method is useful to determine K and R15 of ICG.
