Correlation of aerosol lung scans and patient compliance

Objectives Lung ventilation aerosol scans have long been debated, regarding the amount of room and personnel contamination that occurs during administration. Since lung ventilation requires an inhalation administration, the patient dose is highly dependent on patient cooperation. To determine the rate of contamination occurrence, research with 99mTc-DTPA aerosols for lung ventilation scans was performed and correlated to patient compliance.

Methods Research was done on ten patients by performing wipe tests of four areas, before and after administration of the 99mTc-DTPA aerosol kit. These areas included: technologist coat, technologist mask, cart that holds the 99mTc-DTPA aerosol kit, and the floor area around the patient. Each patient examined was rated on a compliance scale of one to four; one being highly compliant and four being non-compliant. All data was recorded in an Excel spreadsheet and differences were determined between the pre-ventilation and post-ventilation data to determine if any or how much contamination occurred.

Results When comparing the data, it was determined that contamination did occur with 99mTc-DTPA aerosols for lung ventilation scans. The amount of contamination that occurred had an apparent correlation with patient compliance. When patient compliance was rated as a one or two, minimal/negligible contamination occurred. When patient compliance was rated as a four, high contamination occurred.

Conclusions Lung ventilation scans using 99mTc-DTPA aerosols were determined to have minimal contamination when patients were compliant compared to the moderate contamination found with noncompliant patients