Abstract
The presence of affected axillary lymph nodes should be considered as one of the most important prognostic factors of breast cancer. We tried to evaluate the role of 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy in detecting axillary lymph node metastases in patients with breast cancer. Consecutive 21 patients underwent a scinti-mammography prior to axillary lymph node dissection. The scintigraphic result was compared to histopathologic findings. A sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 84.6% of planar and SPECT scintimammography were achieved in detecting axillary lymph node metastases. Although the specificity was inferior to ultrasonography (US) and CT, 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy showed a high accuracy of 90.5% and was able to detect axillary lymph node involvement when one or two axillary lymph node metastases were present. The smallest diameter in recognized metastatic lesions of lymph nodes was 3_??_6mm. This study indicates that 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy has a good diagnostic accuracy for detecting axillary lymph node metastases. It is expected that the usefulness of 99mTc-MIBI will increase with an advance in the equipment and image analysis method.
