ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Lung uptake during liver scanning has been considered as a passing phenomenon related to several diseases, and especially infectious diseases and malignancy. Some reports have shown diffuse lung uptake during liver scanning of malarial patients. Therefore, we tried to determine the relationship between the abnormalities of the clinical features, including the hematobiochemical indices and the lung uptake during liver scanning, by analyzing the information of the malarial patients. METHODS: We performed 99mTechnethium(Tc)-sulfur colloid liver scanning on 20 of the 45 malarial patients who were admitted from 1999 to 2004. We divided them into two groups, the Lung-Uptake (LU) group and the Non-Lung-Uptake (NLU) group. We analyzed the hematobiochemical indices and clinical features, including the respiratory symptoms, between the two groups. RESULTS: 10 of the 20 malarial patients showed lung uptake on the liver scan. The mean platelet counts were 74,000/L and 165,000/L, respectively, in the LU group and the NLU group (p=0.012). Also, the mean total cholesterol levels were 80.3 mg/dL and 105.7 mg/dL, respectively, in the LU group and the NLU group (p=0.033). The scores ofthe bone marrow (BM) uptake in the LU group were higher than those in the NLU group (p=0.008). Yet the other values such as Hb, ALT, albumin and total bilirubin were not statistically significant, nor were the peak body temperatureand other features. CONCLUSIONS: Half of the patients had lung uptake on the liver scanning, and this may be considered as a characteristic of vivax malaria. The BM uptake during liver scanning in the LU group was more increased, and this is supposed to be a consequence of hyperstimulated reticuloendothelial system, which was accompanied by thrombocytopenia and a lower level of total cholesterol in malarial patients.
