Radionuclide methods for diagnosis and treatment assessment of breast cancer

Molecular imaging is a multimodal discipline for visualizing biological processes at the subcellular level in vivo. These diagnostic methods could be potentially used for screening and staging of cancer as well as for monitoring of treatment. Formerly, mostly anatomical information played key role in medical visualization. Now, molecular visualization allows improving diagnostic parameters of standard diagnostic methods. Molecular imaging allows not only for localization of tumor, but also for visualization of biological processes that influence tumor behavior and response to therapy. This review reflects the potential role of radionuclide methods and radiopharmaceuticals in diagnostic and assessment of tumor response. The paper covers indications and capabilities of dedicated nuclear breast imaging systems such as breast-specific g-imaging and positron-emission mammography. The accuracy of different methods was analyzed. The analysis showed that new technological solutions allow to significantly increase informativeness of examinations through improved spatial resolution compared to whole-body imaging cameras. Molecular imaging is useful for neoadjuvant chemotherapy response monitoring and is highly sensitive for prediction of non-responsiveness during treatment of breast cancer. The sensitivity of molecular breast imaging is comparable with that of magnetic resonance imaging, but has higher specificity. Molecular imaging may play a great potential role in the diagnostic algorithm for breast cancer.