Resistance to chemotherapy is a major cause of treatment failure in patients with breast cancer.
A study reported in the June issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine found that scintigraphic imaging with 99mTc-sestamibi accurately predicted which breast tumors would be chemoresistant.
The study was able to predict 100% of the time which patients would respond to chemotherapy, and 83% of the time which patients would not respond. Physicians in this phase II clinical trial studied 30 patients with untreated locally advanced breast cancer for whom a cycle of chemotherapy followed by surgery was planned.
The patients received an injection of 99mTc-sestamibi and were scanned before treatment and again before surgery. Those who were likely to respond had a low wash-out rate, or WOR (<45%) of the 99mTc-sestamibi. That means a higher amount of it remained in the body after injection, and showed up in the scan. Those unlikely to respond had a higher WOR (>45%). The authors pointed out that knowing a tumor was likely to be chemoresistant would allow physicians to prescribe specific drugs to boost the body’s ability to respond to chemotherapy.
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