In this study, Israeli researchers calculated their subjects' body mass indexes and evaluated 220 women with invasive breast cancer by identifying sentinel nodes in three ways: using an intraoperative blue dye technique, lymphoscintigraphy (pre-operative two-dimensional imaging) and SPECT/CT lymphoscintigraphy. Researchers found that SPECT/CT lymphoscintigraphy also discovered sentinel nodes that were not identified with the intraoperative blue dye technique in a significant number of patients. "As the number of integrated hybrid SPECT/CT systems evolves, our results hopefully will encourage the use of lymphoscintigraphic SPECT/CT in other centers," said Lerman. "Data will continue to be collected in identifying sentinel nodes in 'problematic' subgroups of patients with breast cancer and in those with other solid tumors where nodal staging is indicated," she said.

"Improved Sentinel Node Identification by SPECT/CT in Overweight Patients With Breast Cancer" appears in the February issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, which is published by SNM, the leading international molecular imaging and nuclear medicine association. Additional co-authors include Gennady Lievshitz, the nuclear medicine department at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center; Osnat Zak, GE Healthcare in Haifa, Israel; Ur Metser and Einat Even-Sapir, both with the nuclear medicine department at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University; and Shlomo Schneebaum, the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University and the Department of Radio-Isotope Guided Surgery Unit of Surgery A, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.


Additional information can be found online at http://www.snm.org.

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