Investigating a Technologist-Driven Injection Technique in Lymphoscintigraphy at a Single Rural Center: A Retrospective Audit

Our aim was to investigate the effectiveness of the technologist-driven injection technique of lymphoscintigraphy used at a rural hospital in Australia to identify the correct lymph node for sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in early-stage breast cancer patients. A retrospective audit was conducted...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of nuclear medicine technology 2023-09, Vol.51 (3), p.220-226
Hauptverfasser: Bamforth, Skyla, James, Daphne J, Skilton, Christopher, Smith, Anthony
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Our aim was to investigate the effectiveness of the technologist-driven injection technique of lymphoscintigraphy used at a rural hospital in Australia to identify the correct lymph node for sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in early-stage breast cancer patients. A retrospective audit was conducted using imaging and medical record data from 145 eligible patients who underwent preoperative lymphoscintigraphy for SLNB at a single center throughout 2013 and 2014. The lymphoscintigraphy technique included a single periareolar injection with subsequent dynamic and static images as required. Descriptive statistics, sentinel node identification rates, and imaging-surgery concordance rates were generated from the data. Additionally, χ analysis was used to examine the relationships between age, previous surgical intervention, and injection site and time until a sentinel node is visualized. The technique and statistical results were directly compared against multiple similar studies in the literature. The sentinel node identification rate was 99.3%, and the imaging-surgery concordance rate was 97.2%. The identification rate was significantly higher than those of similar studies in the literature, and concordance rates were similar across studies. The findings demonstrated that age ( = 0.508) and previous surgical intervention ( = 0.966) did not influence the time it takes to visualize a sentinel node. Injection site did appear to have a statistically significant effect ( = 0.001), with injections in the upper outer quadrant correlating with increased times between injection and visualization. The reported lymphoscintigraphy technique for identifying sentinel lymph nodes for SLNB in early-stage breast cancer patients can be justified as an accurate and effective method that is time-sensitive and has outcomes comparable to those of successful studies in the literature.
ISSN:0091-4916
1535-5675
DOI:10.2967/jnmt.123.265442