Diagnosis of Raynaud's phenomenon by (99m)Tc-hydroxymethylene diphosphonate digital blood flow scintigraphy after one-hand chilling.

Abstract

We introduce the use of (99m)Tc-hydroxymethylene diphosphonate (HDP) digital blood flow scintigraphy to diagnose Raynaud's phenomenon (RP). Fifty-seven patients with RP and 60 healthy controls were recruited. One hand was chilled by immersion into water at 4 degrees C, and then an intravenous bolus of 740 MBq of (99m)Tc-HDP was injected. The radioactivity from the second to the fifth fingers of both hands was recorded. Acquisition was performed at a rate of one frame per 2 seconds until 155 frames. We calculated 4 ratios by comparing the activity curves of the chilled hand with those of the ambient hand. The chilled to ambient hand ratio of the initial slope was significantly lower in the patients with RP (0.28 +/- 0.18) than in the controls (0.78 +/- 0.20) (p < 0.001). The chilled to ambient hand ratio of the first peak height, 30-second area under the curve, and blood pool uptake were also lower in the patients with RP than in controls (p < 0.001 for each). The initial slope ratio of 0.51, used as a cutoff value, showed a sensitivity of 91.2% and specificity of 93.3%. The loss of the initial spike curve, the presence of a slowly progressing radioactivity curve, and the inhomogeneous radioactivity uptake in the blood pool image in either hand were characteristic findings of the patients with RP (p < 0.001). (99m)Tc-HDP digital blood flow scintigraphy after one-hand chilling is a noninvasive, accurate, and quantitative method to evaluate RP.