[Scintigraphy in breast cancer]

At present, scintigraphic studies of bone, liver and lymph node have widely been in assessment of metastasis due to breast cancer. Bone scintigraphy is sensitive in the detection of bone metastasis. However, it has also a demerit of high false positive rate. In order to exclude this possibility, bone marrow scintigraphy using 99mTc-Re-colloid is used. Bone marrow scintigraphy is able to differentiate bone metastasis from benign bone lesion and to clarify the intra-medullary metastasis. Liver scintigraphy associated with emission CT gives better detectability of SOL due to liver metastasis. Radionuclide lymphography is used for the visualization of parasternal lymph nodes, and for the evaluation of lymph nodes metastasis. Labelled estrogen as receptor imaging has been tried to delineate breast cancer itself or metastatic focus, but is remained to be further investigated.