Visualization of bone pathologies and lung cancer with 99mTc-glucose phosphate: a comparative study

Glucose phosphate (GP) labelled with 99mTc was used to obtain scintigraphic images of bone lesions in one group of patients (n = 28) and of lung tumors in another (n = 35). All bone lesions detected by 99mTc-MDP were also demonstrated by 99mTc-GP; all lung tumors except 4 were detected by 99mTc-GP, the failure rate being about the same as that for 67Ga. The use of 99mTc-GP is preferable to that of 99mTc-MDP because the former does not accumulate in normal bone; the advantage of 99mTc-GP over 67Ga lies in its better physical characteristics and in the fact that the result of the study is available within a few hours rather than three days.