Detection of acute synthetic vascular graft infection with 111In-labeled leukocyte scanning: an animal study.

Synthetic vascular graft infection is characterized by late diagnosis due to indolent and nonspecific symptoms. Indium-111-labeled leukocyte imaging holds promise as a diagnostic tool to identify vascular graft infection, but reported data on its accuracy are somewhat sparse and conflicting. In this study, 13 mongrel dogs received Dacron aortic interposition grafts. Seven grafts were contaminated at the time of surgery by topical ATCC Staphylococcus aureus concentrated at 10(8) organisms/ml. Six control animals received no graft contamination. All infected animals were sacrificed on the second postoperative day after 111In leukocyte scanning. The results showed a sensitivity of 71%, specificity of 100%, and accuracy of 85% for the 111In leukocyte study in detecting early graft infections; false-positive leukocyte scans in the early postoperative period were not a problem as has been reported by others. These data indicate that leukocyte scanning for graft infection detection is likely to be clinically valuable.