July 5, 2002
A new high-resolution breast-specific gamma camera (HRBGC) may assist the diagnosis of indeterminate breast lesions, according to a report in the July issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Compared with the standard gamma camera, it is more sensitive and has about the same specificity, but it offers views similar to those traditionally used for X-ray mammography. “This new type of camera ultimately may offer physicians a practical way to include scintimammography, with its superior ability to detect cancer, in their clinical practice as an adjunct to mammography,” lead author Rachel F. Brem, MD, from George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., says in a news release.
During scintimammography, injection with the radiotracer 99mTc-sestamibi, which is absorbed more by malignant tissue than by normal tissue, allows better detection of breast cancer than with traditional mammography.
This preliminary study used a prototype HRBGC designed to overcome drawbacks of standard gamma cameras. These drawbacks include registration and resolution issues, inability to acquire multiple views, and difficulty detecting lesions smaller than 1 cm.
This study evaluated 50 women with a total of 58 lesions that were either palpable or were detected on a mammogram or sonogram, comparing consecutive scans done first with the conventional gamma camera and then with the prototype HRBGC. Surgery or needle biopsy revealed that 30 lesions (52%) were benign, and 28 (48%) were malignant.
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