Background: The issue of blood flow in muscles has been dealt with for many years. However, most often it was assessed qualitatively with standard vascular examinations. The quantitatively perfusion assessment is indispensable in the normal and pathological conditions. Some diseases impair the perfusion mainly in the area of upper limbs. It can be observed in Raynaud's disease, vascular occlusive diseases, neurological disturbances, and thermal injuries. Hyperhidrosis of upper limbs after sympathectomy of thoracic part of sympathetic trunk may bring closer the diagnosis statement. Nuclear medicine has the markers and methods that allow for the assessment of the volume of perfusion in muscles. The aim for creating this method and program was the development of radioisotope method allowing for quantitative assessment of perfusion in muscles of upper limbs. This should lead to calculating the perfusion index and its range of normal values in a greater group of patients and to using this method both in the healthy and pathological conditions.
Material and methods: 20 patients, age 30.4 ± 7.1 years, who underwent following examinations: qualification to the group, medical history, subject examinations, USG of upper limb vessels, anthropometric examinations, biochemical and hormonal blood tests, the assessment of upper limbs with USG Doppler and FMD (flow mediated dilatation), radioisotope examinations with gamma camera BrightView XCT by own program RAPUL (Radioisotope Assessment Perfusion of Upper Limb). Acquisitions were started five minutes after intravenous injection of 99mTc-MIBI (metoxyisobutylnitrite). The whole body scintigram and scintigrams of arm and forearm muscles in A-P projections were taken.
Results: In the examined patients, the results of anthropometric, biochemical and hormonal test were within the range of normal values. In radioisotope quantitative assessment of perfusion, perfusion indexes of left arm were 20 < PI(_left) < 11.90 and of the right arm 7.00 < PI(_right) <12.30. The dependency correlation PI(_left) vs. PI(_right) was strong r = 0.92036.The values of perfusion symmetry index (IPS) had a normal distribution and were within the following range: 0.9231 < IPS < 1.1019.
Conclusions: The RAPUL method and program allow for quantitative assessment of perfusion in muscles of upper limbs. Developed program has a high repeatability of results. The results in the bigger group will allow for defining the range of normal values of perfusion index in muscles of upper limbs at rest. These will be diagnostically used both in healthy (sports medicine, military services) and pathological conditions.