Compared to mammography, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), breast-specific gamma imaging (BSGI) has the greatest sensitivity for detecting invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC), a difficult-to-diagnose breast cancer, according to findings presented on December 2, 2008 to the Radiological Society of North America.
This study was a retrospective multi-center study of women with biopsy-proven pure ILC. Patients had imaging performed with mammography and BSGI. Ultrasound and MRI results, if performed, and pathologic tumor size were included for analysis. The sensitivity of mammography, ultrasound, MRI and BSGI was determined for each modality and compared.
Breast-specific gamma imaging had the greatest sensitivity for the detection of breast cancer with a sensitivity of 93 percent. Mammography, ultrasound and MRI demonstrated sensitivities of 79 percent, 68 percent and 83 percent, respectively.
The molecular breast imaging for the study was conducted using a Dilon 6800 Gamma Camera, a high-resolution, small field-of-view gamma camera. With BSGI, the patient receives a pharmaceutical tracing agent that is absorbed by all the cells in the body. Due to their increased rate of metabolic activity, cancerous cells in the breast absorb a greater amount of the tracing agent than the normal surrounding tissue and generally appear as hot spots on the image.