Usefulness of scintimammography as an adjunct to mammography and ultrasound in the diagnosis of breast diseases

Abstract

This study was undertaken to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of 99mtechnetium methoxyisobutylisonitrile scintimammography (SM) and combined use of mammography and ultrasound in the detection of the breast lesions in the symptomatic breast. Histopathological findings were the gold standard. Eighty patients with symptomatic breasts underwent mammography and/or ultrasound breast followed by SM. In 25 patients there were 27 lesions that were malignant and 55 patients had 65 lesions that were benign. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of SM were found to be 92, 72, 58, 96 and 78%, respectively, as compared with the combined use of mammography and ultrasound, which showed these parameters to be 89, 94, 86, 95 and 92%, respectively. In this study, SM showed slightly better sensitivity than combined mammography and ultrasound, whereas the specificity was clearly shown as higher in the latter.

99mTc-Sestamibi Scintimammography

“…Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and diagnostic accuracy of scintimammography were found to be 92%, 72%, 58%, 96%, and 78% respectively and 89%, 94%, 86%, 95%, and 92% for the combined use of mammography and ultrasound. Based on these results, breast scintigraphy with 99m Tc-sestamibi showed a slightly better sensitivity whereas specificity was clearly higher in combined mammography and ultrasound [171]. Similar results with regard to the sensitivity (93.3%) and the specificity (71.4%) of scintimammography were reported by Habib et al in 2009 in 22 patients presenting with breast lesions [172].…”