Validation of a blood-sampling method for the measurement of 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate skeletal plasma clearance.

What Was Tested

This clinical trial looks at Methylene blue (non-peptide stack partner).

The aim of this study was to validate the accuracy of the AUC method by comparing K(bone) values obtained by that method with those obtained by gamma-camera imaging.

Two gamma-camera methods were used to evaluate K(bone): the Patlak plot method and the Brenner method, which is based on measuring soft-tissue uptake in the thighs.

Why It Was Studied

Quantitative studies of bone using (99m)Tc-methylene diphosphonate (MDP) reflect bone remodeling.

The simplest method of evaluating (99m)Tc-MDP kinetics involves taking multiple blood samples and measuring total clearance (K(total)) from the area under the plasma curve (AUC) and deriving bone clearance (K(bone)) by subtracting glomerular filtration rate (GFR) from K(total).

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 22 patients were involved.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Seventy-one patients were injected with 600 MBq of (99m)Tc-MDP.

For the first 22 patients, whole-body images were acquired at 15 min and at 1, 2, 3, and 4 h after injection, whereas the remaining 49 were imaged at 15 min and at 1 and 3 h.

How the Study Was Run

Two-minute static images of the thighs were acquired immediately before each whole-body scan.

Multiple blood samples were taken between 5 min and 4 h, and free (99m)Tc-MDP was measured using ultrafiltration.

The soft-tissue data were also used to measure k(4).

What Was Measured

The simplest method of evaluating (99m)Tc-MDP kinetics involves taking multiple blood samples and measuring total clearance (K(total)) from the area under the plasma curve (AUC) and deriving bone clearance (K(bone)) by subtracting glomerular filtration rate (GFR) from K(total).

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Area Under Curve, Blood Specimen Collection, Bone Remodeling, Bone and Bones, Glomerular Filtration Rate, Plasma and Radionuclide Imaging.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial of Methylene blue (non-peptide stack partner) in 22 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2006 (Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Methylene blue (non-peptide stack partner) compound page, all human trials.