A double-blind comparative study on the contrast quality, tolerance and safety of ioversol 300 versus iohexol 300 in central venous angiography (C.V. DSA).

A prospective, randomised, double-blind study was performed to test the contrast quality, tolerance and safety of ioversol 300 mg/ml (Optiray 300, Mallinckrodt Medical, Inc., St-Louis, USA) versus iohexol 300 mg/ml (Omnipaque 300, Schering AG, Berlin). The study was conducted on 80 patients with peripheral vascular disease, who underwent central venous pelvis-leg angiography. The angiograms in the ioversol group were rated "very good" and "good" in 75.6% of the cases versus 51.3% in the iohexol group. Patient tolerance was nearly identical in both groups. On the 4 point rating scale for pain and heat sensations (1 = none; 4 = severe), the average heat scores were 1.28 for ioversol and 1.44 for iohexol. None of the patients complained of pain when receiving the injection. There were clinically significant changes of blood pressure in 3 patients out of each group and tachycardia in 5 patients in the ioversol group and 9 patients in the iohexol group. Seven out of 80 patients reported mild to moderate side-effects. These were related to the contrast medium in the case of 2 patients in both the ioversol and the iohexol group. All reactions resolved spontaneously or could be controlled by treatment.