The estimation of hepatic blood flow with indocyanine green: comparison between the continuous infusion and single injection methods.
We compared the estimation of hepatic blood flow obtained using a continuous infusion of indocyanine green with that obtained after a single intravenous injection of indocyanine green in 35 patients with liver disease. There was no significant difference in the values of hepatic blood flow measured by these two methods, and there was a close correlation between the continuous infusion and single injection methods (r = 0.926, p less than 0.001). In a second group of nine patients with cirrhosis, we evaluated the effect of sampling from the right versus left hepatic vein on hepatic blood flow estimation. There was no significant difference between the two estimates and a good correlation was found (r = 0.878, p less than 0.001). Since values of hepatic blood flow measured after a single indocyanine green injection are similar to those measured using the more classical continuous infusion method, the single injection method may be preferable since it requires only 15 min to be performed.