Small lesion visualization in scintimammography.

For scintimammography (SMM) to have wide clinical use, physicians must be able to rapidly direct biopsy of small cancers. The authors therefore undertook a theoretical and experimental study of lesion visibility vs. acquisition time and tumor size. Theoretical considerations as to acquisition time and contrast suggested that compression would significantly improve lesion visibility for small cancers. These predictions were confirmed with phantom studies. Patient studies showed that high confidence images of small primary breast tumors can be produced with the addition of breast compression. The authors conclude that breast compression would improve SMM detection of small primary breast cancers