Reliability of visual and quantitative hepatobiliary scintigraphy in the follow-up of patients who have undergone cholecystectomy and transduodenal sphincteroplasty

A noninvasive scintigraphic technique to assess the efficacy of a surgical procedure (e.g., cholecystectomy and transduodenal sphincteroplasty) depend s on the development of reliable and accurate qualitative or quantitative d iagnostic criteria that allow early recognition of the occurrence and site of complications. For this purpose, the authors divided biliary flow into a four-step progression process and analyzed transit times from the peripher al vein to the gallbladder, common bile duct; and duodenum and the transit time from the common bile duct to the duodenum. These quantitative paramete rs were assessed in nine healthy volunteers and 31 asymptomatic patients wh o had previous cholecystectomy to validate their reliability. The results i ndicate that the four-step Tc-99m HIDA progression analysis provides a reli able, noninvasive evaluation of biliary flow, so that it can be applied to patients who have had cholecystectomy.