The clinical significance of gall-bladder non-visualization in cholescintigraphy of patients with choledochal cysts

Pan Fu Kao, Miau Ju Huang, Kai Yuan Tzen, Dong Ling You, Yun Fan Liaw

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Intravenous radionuclide cholescintigraphy (IVRC) provides a very specific picture for choledochal cysts. However, the clinical significance of the non-visualization of the gall-bladder (GB) activity in these cases is unclear. In this study, we reviewed 27 patients with choledochal cysts who underwent IVRC within 7 days prior to operation and correlated the GB findings on IVRC with the histopathological results. In 18 of the 27 patients (66.7%), there was non-visualization of the GB at 4 h post injection. Among these, two had histopathological features of acute cholecystitis (AC), 11 had chronic cholecystitis (CC), and five had normal GBs. In the other nine patients with visualization of the GB, there were five cases of CC and four normal GBs. If we apply the finding of non-visualization of the GB at 4 h post injection as the criterion for the diagnosis of AC, the diagnostic accuracy was only 40.7% (11/27). We concluded that: (1) GB disease (AC and CC) was common (66.7%: 7.4% and 59.3% respectively) in choledochal cyst patients. (2) Non-visualization of the GB on IVRC did not necessarily indicate AC in choledochal cyst cases, and the diagnostic accuracy was low. (3) GB disease is not the only cause of GB non-visualization on IVRC. A huge choledochal cyst causing a mass or reservoir effect may be a cause of GB compression and result in non-visualization of the GB.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1468-1472
Number of pages5
JournalEuropean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
Volume23
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 1996
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Choledochal cyst
  • Gall-bladder
  • Radionuclide cholescintigraphy

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