Application of oral ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules in positioning of gallstones in MRCP examination

Objective: By comparing the images of magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) examination before and after oral administration of ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules, to study the influences of the drug on the image quality, gallstone detection rate and clinical gallstone surgery. Methods: The data of 68 patients with biliary system lithiasis receiving treatment at our hospital between October 2014 and December 2014 were collected. All the patients were subjected to routine MRCP examination, oral administration of ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules, and MRCP examination 30 min after the drug administration. Two senior radiologists were blinded to each other to conduct image quality scoring before and after the drug administration. Kappa test analysis was used to evaluate the consistency of the MRCP image quality score by the two radiologists. Taken surgical results as the gold standard, comparison of the accuracy rate in locating gallstones with MRCP examination before and after 3D minutes took ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules orally. Furthermore, Chisquare test was used in analysing the detection rate of gallstones. Results: The quality scores 30 min after orally taking the ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules were significantly improved compared with the quality scores before taking the drug; and the consistency of the image quality scoring between the two radiologists was good (P < 0.05). The gallstone detection rates at hepatic duct, gallbladder, and upper and middle parts of common bile duct were all higher than those of before medication (all P < 0.05). However, the gallstone detection rate in the lower part of common bile duct after medication did not significantly differ from the rate before medication (P > 0.05). Conclusion: Oral administration of the ferric ammonium citrate effervescent granules enables the pancreatic biliary tube anatomy and lesions to be showed more clearly, improves image quality and the accuracy of the gallstone positioning of biliary system, and has an important guiding significance on clinical surgery positioning. (authors)