GAMMA-EMISSION IMAGING IN THE MANAGEMENT OF BREAST DISORDERS

Breast cancer is the commonest malignancy to affect women. The maligna nt process may present clinicians with problems in establishing the di agnosis expeditiously, accurately staging the disease and assessing tu mour response to primary systemic chemotherapy, Considerable recent in terest has focused on the application of imaging techniques that utili ze tumour-specific gamma-ray-emitting radiopharmaceuticals to resolve these problems. The wide availability of gamma camera systems makes si ngle photon-imaging techniques, using radiopharmaceuticals incorporati ng conventional isotopes, attractive options. However, results concern ing the detection of the primary breast cancer and the staging of axil lary lymph nodes suggest that these techniques mould appear to offer n o significant advantages, when compared with those obtained using stan dard diagnostic methods. Dual gamma-ray-emission imaging by positron e mission tomography (PET) may offer an alternative solution. Studies pe rformed show that PET can accurately detect primary breast cancers, st age locoregional lymph nodes and visualize distant tumour metastases. Furthermore, PET may be able to monitor early tumour response to chemo therapy agents. It mould appear, therefore, that dual gamma emission m ight have an important role to play in the management of patients with breast cancer.