Comparison of 131-I-macroaggregated liver scanning and selective hepatic arteriography.

The possibility of using 131I-macroaggregated al bumin ( 131I-MAA) intra-arterially in identifying hepatic neoplasms was raised by King, Wood, Morlen and Colapinto in a report of a case of clinical pathologic correlation (1 ) . Blank and Tyson in 1969 injected 131I-MAA through percutaneously placed intra-arterial hepatic catheters in 12 patients, and scans showed positive images of abnormal areas of increased uptake which correlated with negative images of 198Au scans (2 ) . Improved visual detec tion of hepatic neoplasm could be obtained com pared with colloidal †̃311-labeledalbumin injected intravenously (3 ) and colloidal gold (†̃98Au)(4); the latter technique produced liver scans with areas of reduced uptake indicating abnormality. This study using clinical data and an animal cx periment was carried out to compare selective hepatic arteriograms and 131I-MAA and 198Au scans.