I will be receiving Nuclear Medicine Imaging in the morning on Wednesday prior to surgery to detect the sentinel lymph node path.
The radiotracer will be injected just beneath the skin, or sometimes deeper, using a needle. The dye needs some time to travel from the tumor site to the lymph nodes. When the dye has reached its destination, it will indicate where the sentinel lymph node will be found. The technician will mark this location on my skin so my surgeon will know where to start looking and which lymph nodes to extract during surgery.
The radiotracer will be injected just beneath the skin, or sometimes deeper, using a needle. The dye needs some time to travel from the tumor site to the lymph nodes. When the dye has reached its destination, it will indicate where the sentinel lymph node will be found. The technician will mark this location on my skin so my surgeon will know where to start looking and which lymph nodes to extract during surgery.
- Breast cancer — The radiotracer may be injected in multiple sites near the tumor. The breast, chest and underarm regions will be imaged. Imaging usually is completed within 30 minutes to one hour, but may take up to two or more hours.
Nuclear Medicine
Nuclear medicine (NM) exams image body function rather than anatomy. This is done with the use of small amounts of radioactive materials, also know as radiopharmaceuticals or tracers, each of which is designed for uptake by specific organs or types of body tissue. The tracers are injected into a vein in the arm, inhaled or swallowed. A special camera, called a gamma camera, is used that maps the distribution of the radioactive tracer to create images which are studied by radiologists.
What does the equipment look like?
What does the equipment look like?
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