Chemotherapy-related gallbladder visualization in a 99mTc-HMDP SPECT/CT bone scan
Juliette Bozzetto1, Sophie Lancelot, Francesco Giammarile
1From the *Department of Nuclear Medicine Lumen, and University Claude Bernard Lyon, Lyon; †INSERM U1028-CNRS UMRS5292, Lyon; and ‡EA 3738, Faculté Charles Mérieux Lyon Sud, Lyon, France.
Clinical Nuclear Medicine
|July 24, 2013
Summary
Incidental gallbladder uptake on bone scans can occur and may be linked to chemotherapy, not intrinsic gallbladder disease. Further SPECT/CT imaging helps characterize these unusual findings.
Area of Science:
- Nuclear medicine
- Radiopharmaceuticals
- Medical imaging
Background:
- Nonosseous uptakes on bone scintigraphy are occasionally observed.
- Most uptakes are explained by known mechanisms or artifacts.
- Unusual findings sometimes lack clear explanations.
Observation:
- A case of incidental gallbladder uptake on a bone scan is presented.
- Single-photon emission computed tomography-computed tomography (SPECT/CT) was used for characterization.
- The uptake's significance was not clearly established.
Findings:
- The gallbladder uptake was found to be incidental.
- SPECT/CT aided in characterizing the abnormal location.
- The finding is potentially related to chemotherapy-induced distribution changes.
Implications:
- This finding highlights a potential, unexplained observation in bone scintigraphy.
- Altered radiopharmaceutical distribution due to chemotherapy is a possible cause.
- It suggests that such uptakes may not always indicate intrinsic gallbladder pathology.
