1. Comparability of Quantifying Relative Lung Ventilation with Inhaled 99m Tc-Technegas and 133 Xe in Patients Undergoing Evaluation for Lung Transplantation.
- Author
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Parihar AS, Mhlanga JC, Royal HD, and Siegel BA
- Subjects
- Humans, Male, Female, Middle Aged, Administration, Inhalation, Xenon Radioisotopes, Lung diagnostic imaging, Adult, Radiopharmaceuticals, Sodium Pertechnetate Tc 99m, Radionuclide Imaging, Aged, Lung Transplantation, Pulmonary Ventilation
- Abstract
99m Tc-Technegas was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a radiopharmaceutical for ventilation scintigraphy. However, there are currently no data comparing the quantification of relative lung ventilation with99m Tc-Technegas with that performed using the standard approach with inhaled133 Xe. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of data from prospectively recruited participants in a phase 3 trial undergoing evaluation for lung transplantation who received both133 Xe and99m Tc-Technegas ventilation imaging. The133 Xe and99m Tc-Technegas images were analyzed asynchronously using semiautomatic segmentation to extract the relative lung ventilation percentages. The anterior and posterior99m Tc-Technegas images were analyzed to derive 3 sets of relative ventilation percentages (posterior, anterior, and geometric mean data) and compared with the values from posterior133 Xe images. We evaluated for correlation and agreement between the relative lung ventilation percentages obtained using these 2 radiopharmaceuticals. Results: In a cohort of 74 participants, we found a strong positive correlation in the relative lung ventilation quantified using133 Xe with that using99m Tc-Technegas. A high level of agreement was demonstrated on the Bland-Altman plot comparing the 2 imaging modalities. Seventy-two of 74 participants (97.3%) had their relative ventilation percentage measurements within ±15% for133 Xe and99m Tc-Technegas. The differences in relative ventilation measurements were within the 95% CI limits of the mean for 70 of 74 participants (94.6%) and within a narrower ±10% threshold for 68 of 74 participants (91.9%), again reflecting the comparability of the 2 techniques. The strongest correlation coefficient ( r = 0.79) was observed between the relative ventilation percentages obtained from133 Xe and posterior99m Tc-Technegas images. The geometric mean method had a slightly lower but still comparable correlation ( r = 0.77), and as expected, the correlation with the anterior99m Tc-Technegas images was worst ( r = 0.70). Conclusion: We showed a strong positive correlation and high agreement between the relative lung ventilation percentages obtained using133 Xe and99m Tc-Technegas. These data provide important clinical evidence supporting the use of99m Tc-Technegas for quantification of relative lung ventilation., (© 2025 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.)- Published
- 2025
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