Monitoring the effect of anticoagulants on left atrial thrombi in patientswith rheumatic heart disease: Assessment with In-111-oxine-labelled platelet heart scintigraphy and transoesophageal echocardiography
Ss. Sun et al., Monitoring the effect of anticoagulants on left atrial thrombi in patientswith rheumatic heart disease: Assessment with In-111-oxine-labelled platelet heart scintigraphy and transoesophageal echocardiography, NUCL MED C, 21(7), 2000, pp. 627-630
In-111-oxine-labelled platelet heart scintigraphy (In-plt) was used to eval
uate the activity of left atrial thrombi detected by transoesophageal echoc
ardiography (TEE) in 16 cases of rheumatic heart disease. The effect of ant
icoagulants on the therapeutic intervention of these patients was evaluated
by In-pit and TEE. In-Fit was performed in all patients in serial pre- and
post-anticoagulant therapy studies with anterior, 45 degrees left anterior
oblique and left lateral views taken daily from the second to sixth day af
ter injection of labelled platelets. After discontinuing anticoagulants for
at least 1 week, only nine cases of left atrial thrombi were detected amon
g the 16 cases by initial Ln-plt. After anticoagulants were again used for
at least 3 weeks, all nine positive cases became negative on repeat In-pit.
These results suggest that the diagnostic sensitivity of In-pit is lower t
han that of TEE. However, In-plt is more suitable and useful for evaluating
the activity of left atrial thrombi after antithrombotic agent therapy and
for monitoring the effect of anticoagulant therapy on left atrial thrombi
in patients with rheumatic heart disease. ((C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & W
ilkins).