Immunoscintigraphy with 99Tc-labelled monoclonal anti granulocyte antibodies in patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Antigranulocyte immunoscintigraphy with 99Tc-labelled monoclonal antigranolocyte antibodies (MAb BW 250/83, Granulozyt) was carried out in ten patients with symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease to exclude or confirm the presence of an inflammatory process. A slow iv infusion of 740 MBq of the antibodies was performed 40 minutes after labelling. A whole-body scan was done at hours 4 and 24 post injection. In four patients planar scintigraphy of abdominal region only was also performed for better visualization of the pathological findings. Immunoscintigraphy provided evidence of an inflammatory bowel process in 8 cases (true positive), and excluded the diagnosis in one case (true negative). There was one false negative result.The study shows that immunoscintigraphy with 99Tc-labelled antibodies (Granulozyt) is an easily performed procedure, with high specificity for diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease and can be carried out as a routine practice in nuclear medicine. 7 refs., 1 tab., 4 figs. (author)