Quantitated scintillation scanning for the measurement of lung perfusion.

The measurement of lung perfusion by bronchospirometry was first described by Bjorkman in 1934. The method is cumbersome and unpleasant for the patient, since it involves intratracheal intubation. Nevertheless, it is still a standard method for the measurement of individual lung perfusion. In 1964, Wagner, Sabiston, McAfee, Tow, and Stern described their preliminary findings with a new radioisotope lung scanning procedure. They injected macroaggregates of 1311 labelled human serum albumin into a peripheral vein, localized the accumulation of radioactivity in the lung with a Scintiscanner, and postulated that the concentration of radioactively labelled micro-emboli in the various parts of the lung was directly related to pulmonary blood flow. In this study we have compared the blood flow in each lung, as determined by bronchospirometry, with the individual lung perfusion, as determined by a quantitative Scintiscanning procedure.