In Vivo Comparison of Anticoagulant Citrate Dextrose Versus Heparin for Use as an Anticoagulant with the UltraTag^® Red Blood Cell Kit

Abstract

Objective: The package insert for the UltraTag^® RBC kit recommends the use of either heparin or anticoagulant citrate dextrose (ACD) as an anticoagulant. A comparison study between heparin and ACD solution was done to assess image quality.

Methods: Fourteen patients’ red blood cells (RBC) were labeled with the UltraTag^® RBC kit and ^99mTc using 10 units of heparin or 0.15 ml of ACD solution-A per ml of blood. The labeling efficiency (LE) of the ^99mTc-labeled RBC was determined before and after reinjection, and multigated acquisition (MUGA) and whole-body images were subsequently obtained.

Results: The images were analyzed by comparing the heart-to-background ratio, heart-to-lung ratio and kidney-to-background ratio. Both heparin and ACD gave similar LE and ratios of regions of interest.

Conclusion: There was no significant difference between ACD and heparin groups in overall image quality either on MUGA or on visual inspection of whole-body images.