Society of Nuclear Medicine Procedure Guideline for Gallium Scintigraphy in the Evaluation of Malignant Disease

A. Ga-67 is a group IIIA metal which has been used for imaging a variety of solid neoplasms for more than 25 yr. B . Ga-67 imaging of neoplastic disease has shown the greatest utility in imaging lymphoma. The guideline will concentrate on the use of this technique in lymphoma although the technical aspects of image collection and processing may be applied to the imaging of other neoplastic diseases. C. Ga-67 has proven useful in the management of patients with lymphoma for: 1. Staging the extent of disease; 2. Detecting relapse or progression of disease; 3. Determining response to therapy; 4. Predicting outcome. D . Meaningful compilation of sensitivity and specificity for imaging lymphoma is difficult because of differences in technique, differences in reporting the data regarding the number of lesions detected, or the number of cases detected, and variations in nomenclature and reporting of histopathology. Further, most “gallium avid” lesions are not examined by biopsy.