Adverse reactions to radiopharmaceuticals. United Kingdom 1977-1983

Details of reports to the UK Adverse Reaction Reporting Scheme for the years 1977-1983 are given. These show a changing pattern since earlier reports, in part due to the discontinuance of older radiopharmaceuticals and changes in quality control measures, but also to the introduction of methylene diphosphonate for bone imaging which has accounted for nearly half of our more recent reports. Colloids for reticulo-endothelial (liver) scans account for about one third of this series. The great majority of reactions are of an idiosyncratic hypersensitive nature and none due to sterility problems or pyrogens. Accurate incidence figures are difficult to obtain but including even the trivial forms of reaction, we estimate a reaction rate of between 1:1000 and 1:10,000 in vivo nuclear medicine procedures, a figure considerably higher than most previous surveys have suggested.