Hepatic Hemangioma Study

This is a simple and painless way of taking pictures of your abdomen, using a radioactive tracer to detect cavernous hemangiomas (benign vascular tumors) in the liver. 

When you arrive in the department, a technologist will explain the entire procedure to you and then give you the opportunity to ask any questions. The technologist will then take a sample of your blood. This process will take about 15 min. The technologist will label your blood with a small amount of radioactivity. This labeling process will take approximately one hour to perform. During this time, you will be waiting in the waiting area.  

Once the labelled blood is ready, you will be brought into the imaging room. The technologist will ask you to lie down on an imaging table and place you under a special detector, called a gamma camera. The technologist will then re-inject your labelled blood into a vein in your arm. There are no known side effects from this injection. The technologist will then take some images of your abdomen. This imaging portion will take approximately 30 min. 

Now, there will be a waiting period of about 3 hours before the second part of imaging can take place. This waiting interval is necessary to allow the labelled blood cells to localize in any hemangiomas in your liver. During this time, you may eat and drink and are free to leave the department and return later. When the appropriate wait interval has passed, you will be brought back into the imaging room. Once again, the technologist will take some images of your abdomen, followed by three dimensional pictures. This imaging takes about 1 hour. 

The entire test will take most of the day to complete.

• Bring your Health card.
• No special preparation is required. You will be able to eat, drink and take your medications as usual on the day of your scan.  
• We would like you to dress in clothing that does not have any metal. Please refrain from wearing jewelry. Please leave all valuables at home.
• Since there may be a few hours waiting time between imaging during this procedure, it may be beneficial to bring some reading material. There is free Wi-Fi available.

Only the pinprick of the injection needle may hurt a bit. You may have had a blood test in the past. This is much the same. 

The injection contains a small amount of radioactive tracer which emits gamma rays (these are similar to X-rays). The radiation dose is very low and will disappear by itself after two days. The results of your scan will give your doctor useful information about your condition and will help them plan your treatment. The benefits of having the scan far outweigh any potential risk from the small radiation dose. 

No special precautions are needed after the scan. If you are travelling across any borders in the seven days after your scan, please ask us for further advice. Border crossings and airports have very sensitive radiation detectors which may pick up tiny amounts of radioactivity remaining after your scan. We will give you a letter that you can show to customs officials at border crossings or airports. 

Please tell us if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding must be interrupted for up to 4 hours after the exam, during which time one milk meal should be pumped and discarded. Prepare for your exam accordingly. 

A specially trained doctor will examine the pictures. This is normally done soon after the end of the scan. A report is then sent to the doctor who asked us to do the scan. Your doctor will normally receive the report within one week. You will also have access to the report on MyChart as soon as it is released. 

If you have questions about the scan results or report, please contact your doctor directly. They are best able to interpret the report for you. 

No. This test is paid for by the healthcare system. The test costs several hundred dollars, so please notify the department at 613-761-4831 if you cannot make your appointment. 

If you cannot make your appointment, it is important that you notify the department at 613-761-4831 as soon as possible. Failure to make your appointment results in wasting of expensive materials that are ordered especially for your appointment and also reduces availability to other patients. Missed appointments may also result in delays of your treatments.