The quantitative measurement of portal-systemic shunt in patients with cirrhosis using radionuclide

The portal-systemic shunt was studied in 57 patients with cirrhosis and 12 normal subjects using pre-rectal injection of 99mTcO4- scintigraphy. According to the time of appearance and Time-Activity curve of the liver in comparison with those of the heart, 69 subjects were divided in to three patterns. All normal subjects belonged to pattern I and the average portal-systemic shunt index (SI) was 15.5% +- 2.9%. In the cirrhosis group, 95% of patients fell into pattern II and 5% pattern III, SI was 68.7% +-11.4% (P<0.01). If the demarcation was set at SI = 35%, the positive rate of cirrhosis patients was 100%. The portal pressure measured in 16 patients during operation correlated significantly with SI (r = 0.79, P<0.01)