Nuclear medicine communications
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The aims of this study were to evaluate subclinical pulmonary injury in patients with noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) who showed normal chest radiograph and pulmonary function test results by using technetium-99 hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (Tc-99m-HMPAO) scintigraphy and to investigate the relationship between Tc-99m-HMPAO lung uptake and duration of diabetes, glycemic control, and the presence of diabetes-related microvascular complications. ⋯ Tc-99m-HMPAO lung scintigraphy is a sensitive and an objective method for the detection of subclinical lung injury in NIDDM patients. Tc-99m-HMPAO lung uptake serves as an indicator of pulmonary injury due to diabetes, regardless of diabetes age, glycemic control, and the presence of other diabetes-related microvascular complications.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of fluorine-18 (¹⁸F) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in the detection of recurrent medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) in patients with elevated calcitonin levels. ⋯ PET/CT is a sensitive imaging tool in the detection of MTC recurrence, especially in patients with high calcitonin levels, and it gives additional information in one third of all patients on an average by detecting an occult disease or confirming findings of other imaging tools.
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The objective of this study was to compare the diagnostic value obtained using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/spiral computed tomography (CT) with Tc-99m methylene-diphosphonate with that obtained using SPECT alone in patients with spinal lesions. ⋯ Compared with SPECT imaging, SPECT/spiral CT hybrid imaging significantly reduced the number of lesions judged to be equivocal. This reduction allowed for a definitive diagnosis to be made by imaging in the majority of patients.
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Unilateral hyperlucent lung on chest radiograph is uncommon in children. It is often found incidentally and always refers to Swyer-James syndrome, with decrease in pulmonary vascularity and air trapping during expiration. However, it may occasionally mimic other serious lung diseases such as pulmonary hypoplasia/aplasia, defect of pulmonary artery, and other primary pulmonary disorders. In this study, we hypothesized that there would be characteristic patterns in pulmonary ventilation and perfusion scintigraphy (V/Q scan) in children with unilateral hyperlucency on chest film, which could play an important role in differential diagnosis of this disease group explicitly. ⋯ We chose a descriptive approach to the V/Q scan in children with unilateral hyperlucent lung on chest radiograph. This result enables us to promote the V/Q scan as a first-line tool in evaluating these patients and to avoid further unnecessary procedures.
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To retrospectively evaluate the rate of malignancy of focal fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG)-avid lesions without computed tomography (CT) correlate at whole-body positron emission tomography (PET)-CT in oncology patients, because better defining these abnormalities could potentially lead to improved patient management algorithms that rely on PET-CT for detection, staging, and treatment monitoring of malignancies. ⋯ Focal FDG avid lesions without CT correlate were malignant in 41% of cases in our series of oncology patients. Lesions in lymph node location and in bones had the highest rates of malignancy. Knowledge of the patterns and risk of malignancy of focal FDG-avid lesions without CT correlate in oncology patients may facilitate the management of oncology patients with such lesions on PET-CT, and could lead to an improved interpretation of PET-CT scans by imaging specialists.