Combined scintiscans in the diagnosis of thyroid carcinomas

We correlated scintigraphy and histological findings in 40 cases of nodular goiter in which two or more kinds of scintigraphy were performed preoperatively. 201Tl scintigraphy for imaging thyroid carcinoma showed a diagnostic agreement of 80% for thyroid lesions and 82% for metastatic lesions in the cervical lymph nodes. These agreements were higher than with 99mTc-bleomycin scintigraphy. Thus, 201Tl scan can be used to evaluate 'cold' thyroid nodules and to visualize metastatic lesions. 201Tl scan was also found valuable as a diagnostic measure for local recurrence of thyroid carcinoma. However, there were a few false-positive and false-negative results.