[New aspects of nuclear medicine diagnosis of kidney function: improved potential by pharmacologic intervention and...

In nuclear medicine new trends in the diagnosis of renal function are based on the introduction of new radiopharmaceuticals, improvements in the methodological part of the procedure and precise pharmacological intervention in response to given indications. Tc99m mercaptoacetyltriglycine (Tc99m MAG3) was tested as replacement for I123 orthoiodohippuric acid (I123 oIH) both in the form of a HPLC purified substance and as an impure kit preparation. HPLC purified Tc99m MAG3 clearance determinations in anuric patients showed a low extrarenal excretion amounting to only about 5% of the total clearance in normal patients. Kit preparations yielded about 90% of the labelled product; impurities were pertechnetate, reduced hydrolyzed Tc99m and chemically unidentified labelled products which showed a significantly lower renal, but increased hepatobiliary excretion in comparison with Tc99m MAG3. The renal clearance with kit preparations of Tc99m MAG3 was 55% of the clearance with oIH at a comparable urinary excretion. Significantly higher protein binding and therefore, a decrease in the distribution volume of Tc99m was found in comparison with I123 oIH. No difference was recorded between the two substances with respect to the renogram curves in normal subjects, apart from a modest delay in the elimination of Tc99m MAG3. For clinical purposes kit preparations of Tc99m MAG3 proved equal to I123 oIH. The influence of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (captopril) leads to characteristic changes in the renograms of patients with Goldblatt hypertension. Quantitative criteria for the evidence of haemodynamically significant renal artery stenosis were derived from investigations without and with captopril (25 mg) (I123 oIH and Tc99m DTPA) in 21 patients with essential hypertension. The criteria were defined as follows: a delay in peak activity (Tmax) in the I123 oIH captopril renogram exceeding 2 minutes as compared with the baseline value and/or a lower uptake of Tc99m DTPA in comparison with the uptake of I123 oIH (uptake quotient I123 oIH/Tc99m DTPA greater than 1.2). The diagnostic and prognostic potential of the captopril renogram was compared with that of the captopril test by investigating 34 patients with renal artery stenosis (23 uni-, 11 bilateral) (atherosclerosis: 23, fibromuscular hyperplasia: 11). The captopril renogram was positive more often (n = 12) than the captopril test (n = 4) in patients without renal functional impairment of the stenosed kidney. Similar results were obtained with both methods in patients with atrophic kidneys: captopril renography was positive in all cases with a positive captopril test.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)