Radiolabeling Red Blood Cells Using A Hickman Catheter

Patients with surgically inserted Hickman indwelling catheters present special problems for performance of multigated cardiovascular nuclear medicine studies. The routine procedure for performing such studies--labeling red blood cells in vivo with stannous pyrophosphate followed 20 min later by administration of Tc-99m sodium pertechnetate--does not provide clinically acceptable images when the Hickman catheter is used to administer the drugs.We describe an in vitro procedure to label red blood cells that are obtained via the Hickman catheter; this method results in improved in vivo cardiovascular nuclear medicine studies.