Radioisotope guided surgery with imaging probe, a hand-held high-resolution gamma camera

Since 1997, our group of Physics together with Nuclear Physicians studies imaging probes (IP), hand-held, high-resolution gamma cameras for radio-guided surgery (RGS). Present work is aimed to verify the usefulness of two updated IP in different surgical operations. Forty patients scheduled for breast cancer sentinel node (SN) biopsy, five patients with nodal recurrence of thyroid cancer, seven patients with parathyroid adenomas, five patients with neuroendocrine tumours (NET), were operated under the guide of IP. We used two different IP with field of view of 1 and 4 in.2, respectively and intrinsic spatial resolution of about 2 mm. Radioisotopes were 99mTc, 123I and 111In. The 1 in.2 IP detected SN in all the 40 patients and more than one node in 24, whereas anger camera (AC) failed locating SN in four patients and detected true positive second nodes in only nine patients. The 4 in.2 IP was used for RGS of thyroid, parathyroid and NETs. It detected eight latero-cervical nodes. In the same patients, AC detected five invaded nodes. Parathyroid adenomas detected by IP were 10 in 7 patients, NET five in five patients. One and 4 in.2 IPs showed usefulness in all operations. Initial studies on SN biopsy were carried out on small series of patients to validate IP and to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of IP alone or against conventional probes. We propose the use of the IP as control method for legal documentation and surgeon strategy guide before and after lesion(s) removal.