[Cutaneous melanoma; diagnostic procedures and their evaluation in diagnosing and mapping sentinel nodes. Part 2].

The second part of this review describes the advantages, and evaluates the radionuclide-guided methods for sentinel lymph node localization and also evaluates the intraoperative application of the blue dye technique in melanoma. By combining the two techniques, the detection rate rises to 96%-98%. The presence of cancer cells in the sentinel node is histopathologically shown by using hematoxylin-eosin and by using sensitive techniques for the detection of micrometastases.

[Cutaneous malignant melanoma; diagnostic procedures and their evaluation in diagnosing and mapping sentinel nodes].

Cutaneous malignant melanoma represents 4% of all the malignant neoplasms. Nevertheless, 79% of the fatal malignant skin diseases are attributed to melanoma. In melanoma patients, the most important prognostic factor is the regional lymph node invasion.

Erdheim-Chester disease: symmetric uptake in the (99m)Tc-MDP bone scan.

Erdheim-Chester disease (E-C D) is a rare clinicopathologic entity with nearly pathognomonic radiographic features. About half of the affected exhibit extraskeletal manifestations, including involvement of the hypothalamus-pituitary axis, lung, heart, retroperitoneum, skin, liver, kidneys, spleen and orbit. This disease usually affects individuals in their fifties to their seventies and has a male preponderance.

Jaw uptake of technetium-99 methylene diphosphonate in patients on biphosphonates: a word of caution.

Nitrogen-containing biphosphonates are a group of medications that are increasingly used in the management of Paget's disease, fibrous dysplasia, osteoporosis, multiple myeloma and metastatic prostate or breast cancer bone disease. On 2004 it was established that nitrogen-containing biphosphonates may induce jaw osteonecrosis and since then, a substantial number of publications has supported this finding. Jaw osteonecrosis may be asymptomatic, lasting for about a year or symptomatic, accompanied with mild or severe pain.

Trapping of technetium-99m albumin macroaggregate and other four radiopharmaceuticals by blood clots in vitro.

Radiopharmaceuticals are known to interact with the blood components (i.e. the red blood cells, serum proteins etc) but so far, there have been no data regarding their purely mechanical trapping in thrombi.

A large intra-atrial thrombus detected during a lung perfusion scan with technetium-99m macroaggregated albumin injected through the subclavian venous line.

A sixty five year old female patient carrying a double lumen subclavian catheter, with severe right-sided heart failure, was subjected to lung perfusion scan in order to rule out pulmonary embolism. Administration of Tc-99m macroaggregate albumin ((99m)Tc-MAA), via a double lumen (Hickman) subclavian line, resulted in trapping almost half of the injected dose in the right atrium, at the tip of the subclavian catheter. There was no evidence of pulmonary embolism.

The role of 99mTc(V)-DMSA scan as compared to 99mTc-MDP and CT scans in imaging the primary tumor and metastases of osteosarcoma.

The oncophilic complex of technetium-99m labeled pentavalent dimercaptosuccinic acid (99mTc(V)-DMSA) has been successfully used for the detection of primary and metastatic medullary thyroid cancer and for imaging various soft tissue tumors like lung, brain and prostate cancer. In this article, the role of 99mTc(V)-DMSA in the diagnosis of the primary tumor and metastases of osteosarcoma patients as compared to the 99mTc-MDP scan and the CT scan was studied. Twenty-eight patients with bone disease were referred to the Nuclear Medicine Department of Saint Savas Oncology Hospital in Athens from the Orthopedics Department of the same Hospital.