The role of nuclear scanning in head and neck surgery

A number of procedures in nuclear medicine are available to assist the surgeon in evaluating pathologic conditions of the head and neck. Gallium-67 citrate scanning is occasionally useful in determining the extent of head and neck tumors but rarely can it detect an occult tumor and it cannot distinguish between an infection and a tumor. Technetium-99m pertechnetate can be used to evaluate diseases of the salivary glands including 123 and technetium-99m pertechnetate are commonly used to obtain images of the thyroid, but some malignant thyroid nodules will accumulate technetium-99m pertechnetate and the suspicious character of the nodule may be only appreciated by iodine scanning. The use of iodine 131 is generally limited to the detection of a substernal thyroid, therapeutic thyroid ablation, and the treatment of hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancer. Bone scanning has been used experimentally to evaluate the healing of mandibular bone grafts and to detect local extension of primary head and neck tumors to skull and facial bones.