Evaluation of sentinel lymph node localization in malignant melanoma by preoperative semiconductor gamma camera and planar lymphoscintigraphy.

Performing lymphoscintigraphy in a separate room, frees up the conventional gamma camera, coupled with the desire to directly localize sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) in the operating theatre has led to the development of high-resolution semiconductor-detector based handheld gamma-cameras, CrystalCam. This work consists of phantom and clinical studies. For the first part, a Jaszczak phantom with hollow spheres of various volumes were filled with the The results of the phantom study show a good correlation between activity and count-rates for all distancesSPECT/CT, CrystalCamm, and planar lymphoscintigraphy detected 69, 58, and 61 SLNs respectively. The concordance rate of 95.65% by the CrystalCam and planar scintigraphy implies both cameras are statistically coequal in preoperative SLN detection of malignant melanoma. For the higher-echelon nodes, SPECT/CT, planar and CrystalCam imaging systems identified 82, 48, and 13 respectively; thus, CrystalCam was statistically inferior to planar imaging. The handheld CrystalCam is a reliable instrument for localizing SLNs in surgical centers without an on-site nuclear medicine department.

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© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of The American Association of Physicists in Medicine.