Breast cancer staging using technetium-99m sestamibi and indium-111 pentetreotide single-photon emission tomography.
We evaluated the clinical usefulness of single-photon emission tomography (SPET) with technetium-99m sestamibi and indium-111 pentetreotide in breast cancer staging. Fifteen patients with clinical and/or mammographic findings suggesting T1-2N0-1 breast cancer were studied. SPET images were acquired 20 min after 99mTc-sestamibi injection and 4 and 24 h after 111In-pentetreotide injection. Patients underwent surgery the day after the later 111In-pentetreotide acquisition. Pathological examination showed 16 tumours in the 15 patients, with one bilateral carcinoma. The mean tumour diameter was 18.7 mm. Metastatic axillary involvement was found in 6/16 tumours, with a mean of five metastatic nodes per axilla. Both tracers correctly identified 15/16 primary tumours and five of the six cases of metastatic axillary node involvement. No difference between the tracers was observed in breast cancer staging. 99mTc-sestamibi seems to be the better tracer in terms of physical characteristics, execution time and cost-effectiveness. Our data suggest the future possibility of using nuclear medicine imaging to avoid axillary dissection in patients with T1 breast cancer.
Chiti
A
A
Division of Nuclear Medicine, Istituto Nazionale per lo Studio e la Cura dei Tumori, Milano, Italy.
Agresti
R
R
Maffioli
L S
LS
Tomasic
G
G
Savelli
G
G
Crippa
F
F
Pilotti
S
S
Greco
M
M
Bombardieri
E
E
D001365:Axilla; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D018270:Carcinoma, Ductal, Breast / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D018275:Carcinoma, Lobular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D018276:Carcinoma, Medullary / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007205:Indium Radioisotopes; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013004:Somatostatin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives*; D017256:Technetium Tc 99m Sestamibi; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
D007205:Indium Radioisotopes; D013004:Somatostatin; D017256:Technetium Tc 99m Sestamibi; C081788:pentetreotide