The most common cancer of women in the western world is breast cancer.
In Germany, around 71.000 women a year develop breast cancer, about 17.000 die from it each year. In rare cases men do also suffer from breast cancer (about 500 per year).
Most breast tumors are discovered by chance.

When does it make sense to have a scinti mammography performend?
The scinti mammography should be used as an extension to mammography and ultrasound. Especially young female patients with dense breast tissue benefit, because with this method a breast carcinoma can be detected earlier.
The scinti mammography particularly shows advantage when ultrasound and mammography have already detected a breast tumor but cannot certainly determine if this tissue is benign or malignant. Women who fear the invasive nodule assessment by core needle biopsy will find the scinti mammography a welcoming and pain free alternative to assess a breast nodule. The necessary and mostly as highly unpleasant perceived compression of the mamma gland tissue as needed with a core needle biopsy doesn’t apply with this method.
Especially when deciding on the correct method of surgery – mastectomy (removal of the mamma gland) or partial removal of the infested breast tissue and therefore preservation of the breast – a scinti mammography can be of value to the person concerned.

A non-invasive therapy method of benign breast tumors is the Echotherapy, using high frequency therapeutic ultrasound.

The scinti mammography is performed in two steps:
After the injection of the radioactive tracer, an image of the breast is taken after about 10-15 minutes.
After 4 hours another image, complemented by a SPECT.

INDICATION

- Rough, dense mamma tissue
- Palpable lesions, but a normal or rather indistinct mammography
- Implants
- Multifocal disease
- High risk female patients
- Axillary lymph node status
- Male patients
- Preliminary assessment to determine the eligibility of Echotherapy treatment
- Reassurance of the patient and decision support of suitable therapy method
- Exclusion of malignancy