Radiolabel Inflammatory Bowel Disease Case Study

Introduction Radiolabel can be called radiotracer marker or radioactive pharmaceutical agent which is commonly used in therapeutic or diagnostic purpose. Radiolabel applied on white blood cell has different procedure and precautions as well as different diagnostic area in hospital. Radiolabel which applied in clinical practice is on certain type of cells which are red blood cell, white blood cell and platelet. The radioactive agent commonly used to radiolabel the white blood cell include 99mTc -HMPAO and 111In-oxine. Technetium-99m is used in the blood or injected into patients systemic circulation so that it can be detected by medical equipment such as X-ray. Technetium exametazime under brand name of Ceretec which commonly perform radiolabel

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are the most common inflammatory bowel disease. The causes of Crohn's disease can be genetic, exposure of microbes, environmental factor as well as immune system. The symptoms include onset of diarrhoea, abdominal pain and bloody faeces. It can be classified into colic, ileocolic and ileal. There is also classification by action of the disease such as stricturing, penetrating, and inflammatory. Stricturing disease leads to narrowing of the bowel that may lead to obstruction of bowel. Penetrating means uncommon passage path in the bowel . Inflammatory disease means inflammation action without bringing strictures or fistulae. Ulcerative colitis is another chronic disease related to the large intestine or colon which include inflammation of colon lining which grow sores and ulcers. Ulcerative colitis can occur due to an unusual immune system response. In radiolabeling , CT scan is useful to determine the presence of abscesses, fistula and perforations in gastrointestinal system. Extra information can be obtained by Scintigraphic imaging about the progress of the disease. It screens the needs of further treatment or diagnostic procedure. Treatment monitoring, disease progress, other complications can be done by labelled white blood cell imaging. Both 111In and 99mTc can be used in label white blood cells. Single photon

However, it has high cost and difficult to prepare as well as low availability. It has the ability to accumulate in spleen with blood-half clearance time of 7 hours which reduce the time needed for imaging and diagnostic procedure (Datz, 1996). By the way, it brings out inconvenience when several parts of inflammation occur at the same time because of the nonspecificity of leukocytes for infection. Therefore it is favoured during the diagnose of organ inflammation include kidneys, bladder, and for chronic infection