67Ga scintigraphy in postoperative synthetic graft infections.

Postoperative infections of synthetic vascular grafts are seldom diagnosed by conventional radiographic methods, leading to high morbidity and mortality. Gallium-67 scintigraphy was included in the diagnostic evaluation of five patients with suspected vascular graft infections. Abnormal accumulation of the radionuclide around the graft was present in all of these patients who were later determined to have paraprosthetic infections. Gallium-67 citrate scintigrams seem to be diagnostically effective in the difficult problem of paraprosthetic infection.