European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging
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Eur. J. Nucl. Med. Mol. Imaging · Apr 2002
Clinical TrialThe usefulness of hepatobiliary scintigraphy in the diagnosis of complications after adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation.
Living donor liver transplantation has become an accepted procedure to overcome the shortage of adult donor organs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of hepatobiliary scintigraphy in the diagnosis of complications after adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation. We analysed 82 hepatobiliary scintigraphy studies performed using technetium-99m DISIDA in 60 adult patients (44 males, 16 females) who had been transplanted with a living donor's hepatic lobe (right lobe, 32; left lobe, 28). ⋯ The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of scintigraphy for biliary obstruction in the 54 patients with abnormal symptoms or liver function tests were 93% (100% for segmental, 83% for total) and 88% (35/40), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity were each 100% (15/15, 13/13) for bile leak in the 28 patients with suspected bile leak or biloma. Hepatobiliary scintigraphy is an accurate diagnostic modality in the evaluation of biliary complications after adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation, although it has limitations as a means of differential diagnosis of non-biliary complications.