Detection of acute gastrointestinal bleeding by means of technetium-99m in vivo labelled red blood cells.

Background: Prognosis of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding depends on the timely [3] and accurate [8, 18] detection of the source of bleeding and sequential surgical or endoscopy therapy. Scintigraphy with red blood cells (RBCs) in vivo labelled by means of technetium-99m hastened detection of source of GI bleeding and improved management of the particular disease. Gastrointestinal endoscopy is the method of choice for the diagnostics of bleeding from upper tract and large bowel. For diagnostics of bleeding from the small bowel we can use scintigraphy with in vivo labelled autological red blood cells if push-enteroscopy, intra-operative enteroscopy or angiography are not available.

Material And Methods: 31 patients (13 men, 18 women, aged 20-91, mean 56 years) underwent this investigation from 1998 till 2001 at the Department of Nuclear Medicine. All patients had melaena or enterorrhagia associated with acute anaemia. Gastroscopy, colonoscopy, enteroclysis or X-ray angiography did not detect the source of bleeding.

Results: Twenty-one patients had positive scintigraphy with in vivo labelled RBCs--9 patients were already positive on dynamic scintigraphy, and 12 patients were positive on static images. Scintigraphy with in vivo labelled RBCs was negative in 10 patients. GI bleeding stopped spontaneously in these 10 patients with negative scintigraphy. These patients did not undergo intra- operative enteroscopy or surgery. The final diagnosis of the 21 patients with positive scintigraphy was determined in 16 patients by push-enteroscopy (6 patients), intra-operative enteroscopy (6 patients) or by surgery (4 patients). Of these 16 patients the correct place of bleeding was determined by scintigraphy with labelled RBCs in 11 (69%) patients. Final diagnoses of our 16 patients with positive scintigraphy with autological labelled RBCs were: bleeding small bowel arteriovenous malformation (6 patients), uraemic enteritis with bleeding erosions in ileum and jejunum (2 patients), Osler-Rendu- Weber disease (1 patient), pseudocyst of the pancreas with bleeding vessel communicating to the transverse colon (1 patient), bleeding submucose varix in jejunum (1 patient), carcinoid of the ileum (1 patient), bleeding from the ileosigmoideoanastomosis six days after hemicolectomy for Crohn's disease (1 patient), bleeding from an ulcer close to the papilla of Vater (1 patient), bleeding from ulcer at jejunum after previous NSAIDs treatment (1 patient), bleeding inflammatory polyp at ileotransversoanastomosis (1 patient). GI bleeding stopped spontaneously in 5 patients with positive scintigraphy. Therefore these patients did not undergo intraoperative enteroscopy or surgery and we could not determine the final diagnosis.

Conclusions: Scintigraphy with RBCs in vivo labelled technetium- 99m hastened detection of the source of GI bleeding and improved management of the source of GI bleeding and improved management of disease.