Tc-99m Dextran: A New and Sensitive General Purpose Scintigraphic Agent for Diagnosing Intestinal Inflammation

Abstract

Tc-99m dextran is a sensitive and cost-effective agent to diagnose ulcerative colitis, and it may have a role in disease follow-up.

99mTc-dextran scintigraphy to detect disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

“…Its superiority over other agents is attributed to its smaller size and neutral charge, facilitating higher outflow to the lesion from the vascular pool compared with negatively charged proteins, such as human serum albumin (HSA) and HIG [2,6]. The blood clearance of 99m Tc-dextran is faster in comparison with that of other macromolecules, such as HIG and 67 Ga-citrate [3].…”

“…99m Tc-dextran is a potential radiopharmaceutical for infection/inflammation imaging. 99m Tc-dextran has been evaluated in experimental abscesses in mice [2], in arthritis in rabbits [3] and in patients with inflammatory lesions, including ulcerative colitis [4][5][6]. The aim of this study was to test the applicability of 99m Tc-dextran joint scintigraphy in the assessment of disease activity in patients with RA, and to compare it with the clinical disease activity scores and laboratory parameters.…”

Radiopharmaceuticals for the Visualization of Infectious and Inflammatory Lesions

“…Dextran: 99m Tc-Dextran was evaluated both in experimental abscesses in mice [142,162,163] and arthritis in rabbits [164] and in patients with inflammatory lesions including ulcerative colitis [165][166][167]. Dextran (Ave. M.W.…”

“…To simplify the labeling procedure kit formulations were introduced by Dass et al [148]. Compared to HIG it had the advantages of early detection of the lesions (1 h vs 6 h), faster blood clearance (T 1/2 = 70 min vs 300 min), consequently resulting in lower background, and lower cost [167]. In mice the abscess to other tissue ratios were similar, showing the same trend of increasing values up to 24 h [142].…”

“…The blood clearance of 99m Tc-Dextran in normal rabbits was faster in comparison to other macromolecules such as HIG and 67 Ga-citrate. Its superiority over other agents was attributed to its smaller size and neutral charge, facilitating higher outflow to the lesion from the vascular pool compared to negatively charged proteins such as HSA and HIG [142,167]. In 26 patients with active ulcerative colitis 99m Tc-Dextran demonstrated the lesions very well.…”