Original Nuclear Medicine Review 2008

BACKGROUND:The elementary diagnostic method for the de-tection of lymph circulation abnormalities in extremities is lym-phoscintigraphy. This method provides information on the mor-phology and function of the lymphatic system. However, there are no generally acceptable standards for lymphoscintigraphy, which makes judgment of its clinical usefulness very difficult. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this work, a discussion is pre-sented on the usefulness of static qualitative scintigraphy of the lymphatic system of lower extremities as well as of its quantita-tive interpretation, depending upon: (1) time measurement of radiopharmaceutical transport in the system, and (2) assess-ment of its regional uptake in lymph nodes. The effectiveness of visual assessment combined with each of the quantitative evalu-ations mentioned is also presented. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Combination of visual evaluation of stat-ic scintigraphy with each of the listed quantitative procedures im-proves the sensitivity of lymphoscintigraphy in the diagnosis of lym-phatic oedema of lower extremities without affecting the specificity of visual evaluation. Both combined methods are characterized by similar indices of diagnostic efficacy. This enables limitation of the quantitative evaluation of lymphatic scintigraphy to the measure-ment of the final uptake of RPh in the inguinal lymphatic nodes