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Breast cancer staging using technetium-99m sestamibi and indium-111 pentetreotide single-photon emission tomography

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Abstract

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 after99mTc-sestamibi injection and 4 and 24 h after111In-pentetreotide injection. Patients underwent surgery the day after the later111In-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.

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Chiti, A., Agresti, R., Maffioli, L.S. et al. Breast cancer staging using technetium-99m sestamibi and indium-111 pentetreotide single-photon emission tomography. Eur J Nucl Med 24, 192–196 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02439552

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02439552

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