Clinical Assessment of Lymphoscintigraphy with Intradermaly Injection of ^<99m>T_c-HSA in Head and Neck Region

Lymphoscintigraphy has been used for imaging of various lesions of lymphatic systems including metastases of malignant tumors, and is considered to be useful, although some limitatioins have been noted. We performed lymphoscintigraphy of the head and neck regions in normal subjects those with metastases of maligrant tumors using ^<99m>T_c-HSA. The result was that the most prevalent number of normal lymph nodes chains was two, which was found in 79% of all nomal lymphoscintigraphies. The most prevalent number of normal lymph nodes was between 1 and 5, which was found in 64.6% of all normal lymphoscintigraphies. Normal lymphoscintigraphs presented variable and pattern of distribution of lymph nodes. Because false negative rate was 56%, lymphoscintigraphy was considered to be unsuitable for the screening of lymph node metastases of malignant tumors. However, our findings suggested that lymphoscintigraphy is useful for the detection of iymphedema. We consider that lymphoscintigraphy may be better by improving the methods of injecting ^<99m>T_c-HSA and by of obtaining the image. In adition, we should reduce the particle size used because the 80 nm particle size of ^<99m>T_c-HSA is much larger than the ideal 5nm size for lymphoscintigraphy and is considered to impede particle motion.

^<99m>T_c-HAS

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