In vivo comparison of anticoagulant citrate dextrose versus heparin for use as an anticoagulant with the UltraTag® Red Blood Cell kit

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.