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Transmission Computed Tomography, Tc-99m MAA Scintigraphy, and Plain Chest Radiography after Experimentally Produced Acute Pulmonary Arterial Occlusion in the Dog

State University of New York, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, New York

Correspondence: For reprints contact: Zachary D. Grossman, Div. of Nuclear Medicine, Dept. of Radiology, SUNY Upstate Medical Ctr., 750 E. Adams St., Syracuse, NY 13210.

ABSTRACT

We have occluded segmental and subsegmental pulmonary arteries in the dog with Swan-Ganz balloon catheters or i.v. injection of autologous clot, and have studied the chest with transmission computed tomography (TCT), Tc-99m-MAA gamma imaging, and plain radiographs. The arterial occlusions were between 1 and 5 hr old at the time of imaging.

Radiographs revealed no lesions. Tc-99m MAA scans revealed ten of 11 lesions. When a TCT image was made before i.v. injection of Renografin-60, two of 11 lesions were identified; after Renografin the score was four out of ten. The appearance of lesions on TCT was highly variable.

Tc-99m-MAA gamma imaging, therefore, is far more accurate than TCT in the identification of small experimentally produced acute pulmonary arterial occlusions in the dog, and our study fails to suggest a secure place for TCT in the diagnosis of small, acute human pulmonary emboli. The commonly-held assumption that postembolic lung is oligemic is questioned.