Nuclear Medicine Review 2008, tom 11, nr 1

A wide variety of radiopharmaceuticals has been proposed for the scintigraphic detection of inflammatory and infectious  disease. [67Ga]Citrate, being the most primitive radiotracer for this purpose, has a high sensitivity for both acute and chronic infections and noninfectious inflammation [1]. Other radiopharmaceuticals are immunoglobulins [2], liposomes and labelled leukocytes [3], the avidin–biotin system [4] and finally radiolabelled antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin [5]...

Oncological diseases are still a challenge to clinicians and inspire the search for new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Lately, radionuclide therapy with 90Y-labelled compounds has been introduced in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumours  (NET) and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL)...

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a clonal B-lymphocyte neoplasm of terminally differentiated plasma cells. It accounts for approximately 1% of all malignant diseases and represents about 10% of haematologic malignancies. The annual incidence of newly diagnosed cases is approximately 3 to 4 per 100,000 population per year, with an estimated 14,000 new cases each year [1 ]. The cause of MM is unknown. Data from cloning and gene-sequencing studies strongly imply that the malignant clone in MM arises from a late cell in B-cell development [2, 3 ]...

The spectrum of causes for low back pain is wide and includes a variety of conditions including musculoligamentous,  osteoarticular and neurologic disorders. Spinal disorders and facet joint pathology have long been considered common sources of low back pain [1]. Among the various available imaging modalities, bone scintigraphy, including Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), used to be the modality of choice in patients with suspected bone abnormality, to show its physiologic and metabolic activity [2–6]...

Parametric clearance kidney images reflect organ distribution of a physiological quality which is proportional to the clearance.Such images are obtained by mathematic processing of primary conventional image series from dynamic scintigraphy of the urinary system after i.v. administration of an appropriate radiopharmaceutical (RPh). The method was developed in the 1990s by Surma and Anderson [1]...

Lymphatic oedema of the lower extremities is a serious social problem. There are estimates that this disease affects 140–300million people and its frequency rises with the increase in the number of surgical operations and also with the increasing number of oncologic radiotherapeutic procedures [1, 2]...

Thyroid carcinoma is rare among human malignancies (< 1%) but is the most frequent endocrine cancer, accounting for about5% of all thyroid nodules [2]. The incidence of thyroid carcinoma is one of the most rapidly increasing human cancers, at least in the United States [3]. The disease requires a multidisciplinary approach, and nuclear medicine has an important role in diagnosis, staging, treatment and post-treatment follow up...

A 52-year-old woman with b-thalassaemia intermedia was admitted to Hammersmith Hospital for investigation of pulmonaryhypertension that was diagnosed on echocardiogram. An initial PA chest radiograph demonstrated a left paraspinal mass and a large right paravertebral mass, which was initially thought to be due to gross enlargement of the pulmonary arteries. There were no significant focal lung lesions...

Isolated unilateral agenesis of a pulmonary artery is rare and is usually encountered as an associated condition in 0.39% of congenital heart diseases, such as right-sided aortic arch, septal defects, truncus arteriosus and tetralogy of Fallot [1]. In this report we describe a patient who was referred to nuclear medicine for ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy for further investigation of pulmonary hypertension...