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Initial experience in the use of technetium-99 metastable hydroxymethylene diphosphonate as an alternative ventilation agent during periods of interim shortage
Author(s) -
Colin R. Young,
Kalpna Prasad
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
world journal of nuclear medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1607-3312
pISSN - 1450-1147
DOI - 10.4103/1450-1147.203063
Subject(s) - medicine , nuclear medicine , ventilation (architecture) , technetium 99m , technetium , technetium 99 , perfusion , economic shortage , scintigraphy , radiology , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics) , engineering
Sporadic supply interruptions of select radiopharmaceuticals on the global market require consideration of alternative agents to support continuity of essential nuclear medicine examinations. During an acute shortage of Xenon-133 and technetium-99 metastable (Tc-99m) diethylene-triamine-pentaacetate (DTPA), our institution used aerosolized Tc-99m hydroxymethylene diphosphonate (HDP), a radiopharmaceutical traditionally used in bone scintigraphy, in lieu of traditional ventilation agents, for two cases of suspected pulmonary embolism. Similar to Tc-99m-DTPA, Tc-99m-HDP was readily available and easily compounded in our pharmacy, and tolerated well by patients. Identical delivery equipment was used for administration of Tc-99m-HDP as that used in Tc-99m-DTPA, and thus, there was no requirement for a negative pressure room. Similar to Tc-99m-DTPA and unlike Xenon-133, Tc-99m-HDP allowed direct comparison of all 8 ventilation-perfusion images. In addition, the cost per dose of Tc-99m-HDP proved to be less than Tc-99m-DTPA. Despite these favorable characteristics of Tc-99m-HDP, our experience identified an important challenge in obtaining an optimal flux override ratio of > 3 in a reasonable time frame while obtaining ventilation and perfusion images sequentially despite reversing the imaging order in an attempt to overcome this limitation. Although our experience with Tc-99m-HDP in these two cases was favorable, more clinical experience and investigation are warranted before Tc-99m-HDP can be incorporated as a standard alternative ventilation agent.

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