[Bone marrow scintigraphy with 99mTc nanocolloid. A complement to bone scintigraphy with 99mTc MDP in oncologic...

We compared the results of bone marrow scintigraphy (SMO) with those of conventional bone scintigraphy (SO) obtained in patients suffering of malignant neoplasms. SMO was carried out using nanometer-sized particles (nanocolloid) labelled with 99mTc, known to target the phagocitic properties of the medullar reticulo-endothelial cells. The results of the two investigations carried out in 148 patients agreed with each other. Notwithstanding the lesser definition of SMO images compared to SO and the masking effect of the high hepatosplenic activity, the two diagnostic methods were found to agree in 81.1% of all cases. SMO is easy to perform, can be compared well with SO and was demonstrated to be complementary to the latter. The SMO/SO confrontation has been found to be useful for better defining the extension of neoplastic lesions, which in turn has led to better staging of the disease. The investigation provides information about the entire distribution of the central bone marrow and its possible pathologic peripheral expansion. A remarkably reduced nanocolloid uptake cannot only be found in the osseous structure subjected to radiotherapeutic doses in excess of 30 Gy, but also in the case of longer standing high-dosage cytostatic treatments. The latter finding does not have its correlate in SO, hence it could be of considerable interest in validating the continuation of antineoplastic therapies.