The accuracy of RI scintigrams in the diagnosis of head and neck tumors.

The accuracy of Ga scintigrams and bone scintigrams in finding metastatic lesionswas evaluated.Ga scintigrams were performed 89 times and bone scintigrams 26 times on 67 patients with malignant tumors of the head and neck.The rate of correct diagnosis of metastatic lesions by Ga scintigrams was 72%, false positives 15%, false negatives 20%, sensitivity 0.80 and specificity 0.85.The rate of correct diagnosis by bone scintigrams was 81%, false positive 20%, false negative 0, sensitivity 1.0 and specificity 0.80.Correct diagnosis is aided by scintigrams, which are in accord with the clinical courseand the findings on biopsy, surgery and/or autopsy.Although Ga scintigrams showed false positive or false negative results due to factors such as inflammation, irradiation, operation and activity or histology of tumors, they are very useful in finding metastatic lesions, especially in the lung.Bone scintigrams had a higher rate of false positives, but no false negatives, so their sensitivity is high.