Imaging of the Bronchial Blood Flow Using RI-Angiography

—Study on Its Procedure and Application of Dual Radioisotope Technique—

Abstract

RI-angiography with ^99mTcO₄^- was carried out using a scintillation camera with a digital minicomputer for the purpose of imaging of bronchial blood flow in various lung diseases, and as application of dual radioisotope techniques, other imagings such as tumor imaging with ¹⁹⁷HgCl₂ or ⁶⁷Ga-citrate and/or perfusion imaging with ^99mTc-MAA, were performed simultaneously in patients remaining the same position, too. The image as a iso-count map extracted out of the image of ¹⁹⁷HgCl₂, ⁶⁷Ga-citrate or ^99mTc-MAA, was superimposed to the brightness image of RI-angiogram (aortic phase) . By these procedures, the image of bronchial blood flow were obtained in some patients with lung cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis, lung abscess, and chronic bronchitis.
The dual radioisotope techniques using RI-angiography and the other imaging were useful to make isotope diagnosis of lung diseases more reliable, and the image superimposition methods using RI-angiogram and the image of tumor or perfusion, were useful to improve anatomic orientation of the former.