Comparison of relative renal functions calculated with 99mTc-DTPA and 99mTc-DMSA for kidney patients of wide age ranges

Renal scintigraphy is an imaging method that uses small amount of radioactive materials called radiotracers, a Gamma camera and a computer to evaluate kidney functions and its anatomy. The present work reports the comparison of the relative renal functions (RRF) calculated with technetium-99m dimercaptosuccinic acid (^99mTc‑DMSA) and technetium-99m diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (^99mTc‑DTPA) for kidney patients of ages between 5 months and 71 years. A total of 50 patients including 29 male and 21 female has been selected and studied for renography. The mean RRFs have been found to be 52.68 ± 23.63% and 47.32 ± 23.63% respectively for the left and right kidneys with ^99mTc-DMSA measurement. With ^99mTc-DTPA the values are 52.74 ± 23.54% and 47.26 ± 23.54% for the same. In bivariate correlation analysis, a significant positive correlation (r = 0.996, P < .001) has been found between the RRFs calculated with the two methods. Following the patients’ diagnosis, in ANOVA test, no difference has been found between the RRFs calculated for the left and right kidneys. In Bland-Altman plots, the mean difference between the two methods has been found to be 0.1 and the correlation limit lies between −4.3 and 4.2. According to the result obtained in the present work, both the ^99mTc-DMSA and ^99mTc-DTPA scanning methods provide almost the same RRF values. It is, therefore, always not necessary to calculate the RRFs with both the methods. This study suggests that ^99mTc-DMSA may be the primary choice for the evaluation of RRF, but if the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and renogram curve are required, ^99mTc-DTPA can be the obvious selection.