THE CONTINUING CLINICAL ROLE OF GALLIUM-67 SCINTIGRAPHY IN THE AGE OFRECEPTOR IMAGING

Gallium 67 scintigraphy is useful clinically for assessment of tumor v iability after treatment of Hodgkin's and nonHodgkin's lymphoma. Becau se more than 50% of the patients with complete response have a residua l mass after treatment, computed tomography is not a good test to dete rmine if a patient has reached a complete response. Ga-67 scintigraphy , on the other hand, has a sensitivity of 76% to 100% and specificity of 75% to 96% to determine if a residual mass is a residual cancer or made up only of fibrosis and necrosis. Early diagnosis of recurrence i s important in order to start therapy when the tumor can, potentially, still be controlled. The sensitivity of Ga-67 for diagnosis of recurr ence is 95% and the specificity 89%, Scintigraphy has been shown to di agnose recurrence sometimes months before other tests, Ga-67 scintigra phy also has the potential to separate rapid from slow responders duri ng therapy. Even when it has been known for many years, Ga-67 has prov ed recently to be a useful test in assessing lymphoma patients after t reatment. Copyright (C) 1997 by W.B. Saunders Company.