Breast-specific gamma imaging as an adjunct modality for the diagnosis of invasive breast cancer with correlation to tumour size and grade

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the sensitivity of breast-specific gamma imaging (BSGI) in the detection of invasive breast cancers and to characterise the sensitivity of BSGI based on tumour size and pathological grade. Methods: 139 females with invasive carcinoma who underwent BSGI were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were injected in the antecubital vein with 20–30 mCi (925–1110 MBq) of 99mTc-sestamibi. Images were obtained with a high-resolution, breast-specific gamma camera (Dilon 6800; Dilon Technologies, Newport News, VA) and were categorised based on radiotracer uptake as normal, normal with heterogeneous uptake, probably abnormal and abnormal. For a positive examination, the region of the area of increased uptake had to correlate with the laterality and location of the biopsy-proven cancer. Results: 149 invasive cancers in 139 patients with a mean size of 1.8 cm (0.2–8.5 cm) were included. 146 were identified with BSGI (98.0%). All cancers which measured ≥0.7 cm (n=123) ...