Nuclear Medicine Review 2010, tom 13, nr 1

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy has become the standard for axillary lymph node staging in breast cancer. To date, several randomized trials have confirmed that SLN biopsy is a feasible, accurate, and safe staging technique with minimal morbidity. The concept of SLN biopsy technique is simple: Since lymphatic metastasis generally commences from the SLN and tumour cells disseminate sequentially to other lymph nodes, the status of the SLN is a good predictor of regional lymphatic basin involvement...

Bone infection is a common occurrence in infectiology; the management of bone infected patients is a complex issue that requires long therapy. When patients are suspected to have bone infection, the clinician relies heavily on paraclinical examinations and on imagery procedures in particular to ascertain a diagnosis. However, no examination achieves 100 percent accuracy. Therefore, a large number of teams are working on this field, trying to increase the performance of these examinations...

Chronic and repeating infections of the urinary tract are frequent among children. The frequency of urinary tract infections is only second to those of the respiratory system. Theyform a substantial diagnostic and therapeutic problem. Failure of diagnosis is linked to lack of or delayed undertaking of therapy.The available statistics show that at 10 per cent of children of both sexes and 20–50 per cent of adult females are diagnosed with at least one episode of urinary tract infection in their life. The frequency of infections is higher among females than males, with the exclusion of the neonatal period when boys are more frequently affected than girls...

Neurofibromatosis type I (NF1) is a common autosomal dominant multisystem disorder, and its classical features are “café au lait” spots, iris Lisch nodules, neurofibromas, and skin fold freckling. Neurofibromas are the most common tumour associated with NF1, and among the three subtypes (cutaneous, subcutaneous, and plexiform) plexiform neurofibroma (PN) represents a major cause of morbidity...

Diabetes mellitus is a growing global epidemic of the twenty-first century. According to the WHO, the number of patients with diabetes type II will rise from 132 million in 1997 to 220 million in 2010, 250 million in 2020, and 300 million in 2025. One of the major debilitating complications of diabetes is diabetic foot, including the ulcerations and deformations of the foot with the protracted course and impaired healing...

Despite the fact that extensive progress in neuroimaging techniques of the brain has been made, there is no specific pattern of pathological changes in any type of dementia. This article is a brief review of the methods used in diagnosing the most frequent central nervous system diseases. We suppose that in the not-too-distant future it will be possible to assess not only the location, intensity, and aetiology of pathological dementive processes but also techniques that will detect the earliest changes in brain structure...

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a neoplastic monoclonal proliferation of plasma cells within the bone marrow, which accounts for 1% of all malignant disease and 10% of haematological malignancies. It typically affects elderly patients with median age of presentation around 70 years; fewer than 2% of patients are under 40 years of age. Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS; a premalignant disorder in which a clone of plasma cells produces a monoclonal paraprotein that does not cause end-organ damage) is present in 2% of persons older than 50 years, and the risk of progressing to multiple myeloma is 1% each year..,

The prognosis of patients with diabetes mellitus depends on the presence of vascular disease. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death in people with diabetes mellitus. It has been reported that the 7-year cardiovascular mortality rateamong patients with type 2 diabetes without a prior history of myocardial infarction is as high as that in non-diabetic patients with previous infarction...