Functional evaluation of renal transplants with scintigraphy.

A variety of techniques have been employed to assess renal function and its evolution after transplant surgery. Since initial perfusion studies are easy to perform, one may be tempted to rely on 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) scanning alone. Some discrepancies have been observed between perfusion studies and clinical outcome of the renal transplant patients however. We therefore decided to evaluate both 99mTc-DTPA and 131I-hippuran renal scanning in 28 renal transplant patients. Sixty 99mTc-DTPA perfusion and 131I hippuran scintigraphies were performed using a same-day protocol. The examinations were repeated in 14 patients at weekly or monthly intervals to monitor the clinical trend of these patients. The results of this study indicate that, for early detection of the kidney problems, 131I-hippuran scintigraphy was superior to 99mTc-DTPA perfusion scans, but for the proper clinical management of renal transplant patients, both procedures should be utilized.