Fig 3. Diethylene-triamine-pentaacetate (DTPA)-Tc99m evaluation as a radiotracer to monitor mucociliary clearance.
A) micro-computer tomography (CT) representative image to locate SPECT images. B) SPECT representative image of nebulized DTPA-Tc99m at time 0. C) SPECT representative image of nebulized DTPA-Tc99m at time 360 min. D) Effects of bitter taste agonists chloroquine, denatonium and saccharin on % DTPA-Tc99m radiation intensity. E) Representative image of extra-pulmonary location of DTPA-Tc99m at time 360 min. Representative images of n = 12 guinea pig per experimental condition are showed. Colorimetric intensity scale adjusted for all images is shown. 100% DTPA-Tc99m intensity corresponds to the start of experiments (t = 0min) for all experimental conditions). Results are expressed as mean ± SD. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA): P>0.05. Post hoc Bonferroni test: P>0.05 compared with controls.