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Gallium Gallbladder Scanning in Cholecystitis

Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, California

Correspondence: For reprints contact: A. D. Waxman, Dept. of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine Section, LAC/USC Medical Center, 1200 N. State St., Los Angeles, Calif. 90033.

ABSTRACT

Gallium has been shown to accumulate in metabolically active tissue including sites of infection. The purpose of this study was to evaluate gallium scanning in cholecystitis. Ten patients with cholecystitis were studied using conventional gallium scanning techniques. Five patients with acute cholecystitis showed intense gallium accumulation in the gallbladder area. One of five patients with chronic cholecystitis showed significant accumulation in the gallbladder. The limitations of this method are mainly the need for serial scanning to rule out gallium accumulation in the hepatic flexure of the colon and also the failure to detect consistently a chronically diseased fibrotic gallbladder. We conclude that gallium scanning of the gallbladder is an important adjunctive study in the evaluation of cholecystitis.