Delayed Tc-99m Citrate Scintigraphy in the Evaluation of Palpable Breast Masses

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of Tc-99m citrate as a new tumor-localizing agent in palpable breast masses. Scintimammography was performed in 43 female patients. Of these, 10 women (group A) were considered to be healthy with no palpable breast masses, and the remaining 33 patients (group B) had palpable breast masses. All patients with palpable breast masses underwent fine-needle aspiration cytology and subsequent biopsy within 2 weeks of the study. Nine patients had a primary malignant lesion of the breast, whereas 24 patients had benign disease. The patients with breast cancer underwent surgery, and subsequently a histopathologic diagnosis was made. Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy values obtained in our study were 87%, 100%, and 90%, respectively. Scintimammograms were performed in these patients up to 24 hours. Initial uptake at 1 and 3 hours was noted in all the breast masses. However, benign masses did not show persistence of tracer uptake at 24 hours, whereas those that were malignant continued to show persistent radionuclide concentration. Thus, the uptake and outflow pattern seemed to differentiate benign breast disease from breast cancer. The study shows the potential of Tc-99m citrate for imaging and evaluating breast masses.

Imaging Sigma Receptors: Applications in Drug Development

“…For assessing primary lesions, it is sometimes possible with PET to detect tumors that are missed by mammography and other standard methods. Several PET and SPECT radiotracers have been evaluated as breast tumor imaging agents in pre-clinical and clinical studies [13,49,53,56,57,63,255,[277][278][279][280][281][282][283][284][285][286][287][288][289][290][291]. The potential PET tracers for breast cancer include [ 11 C]methionine [292], [ 11 C]tyrosine [288,293], [ 18 F]fluoroestradiol and radiolabeled progestins [287,294] are examples of tracers in preliminary stages of evaluation.…”

“…The potential PET tracers for breast cancer include [ 11 C]methionine [292], [ 11 C]tyrosine [288,293], [ 18 F]fluoroestradiol and radiolabeled progestins [287,294] are examples of tracers in preliminary stages of evaluation. Other types of tracers are in various stages of development and testing [13,49,53,57,283,284,291,295]. At this time, no agent has proven to be sufficiently accurate and specific in a clinical trial to be confirmed as a useful clinical tool.…”

Development of a miniature scintillation camera using an NaI(Tl) scintillator and PSPMT for scintimammography

“…Recently a new diagnostic method called scintimammography has been developed, which is performed with a scintillation camera and tumour-seeking radiopharmaceuticals such as 99m Tc sestamibi, 99m Tc methylene diphosphonate or 99m Tc tetrofosmin (Prats et al 1999, Melloul et al 1999, Mondal et al 1999, Arslan et al 1999, Danielsson et al 1999, Howarth et al 1999, Horne et al 1999. The diagnostic accuracy of this method for detecting breast cancer has been demonstrated to have a high sensitivity and specificity of around 83-97% and 74-88% respectively.…”

Complex Fibroadenoma Mimicking Breast Cancer on 68Ga-FAPI-04 and 18F-FDG PET/CT

“…Fibroadenomas include histological variants that exhibit distinct histological features and variations in their clinicopathological features, including cellular, juvenile, and complex fibroadenomas. Various radiopharmaceuticals have been reported to show varying degrees of uptake in fibroadenoma 1–4 . 68 Ga-FAPI PET/CT has been positive in many primary breast malignancies and may also be positive in many nonmalignant lesions or diseases 5–12 .…”