Efficacy of quantitative cholescintigraphy in the diagnosis of sphincter of Oddi dysfunction

The diagnostic efficacy of time-activity curves (TAC) and common bile duct dynamics (CBDD) derived from quantitative cholescintigraphy (QC) was assessed in patients with suspected sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD). Quantitative cholescintigraphy was performed on 34 cholecystectomized individuals with suspected SOD and 26 asymptomatic controls. Each patient with suspected SOD underwent endoscopic retrograde cholangiography and sphincter of Oddi manometry (SOM). After exclusion of eight patients because of failure of manometry, the final diagnoses of the remaining 26 patients were taken as the gold standard by which to determine the detectability of TAC and CBDD. The sensitivity of TAC reached 68.8%. Common bile duct dynamics showed equal sensitivity but was more specific than TAC. The sensitivity improved to 87.5% when TAC and CBDD were combined. We conclude that non-invasive QC provides good sensitivity and specificity in evaluating cholecystectomized patients with suspected SOD.