Cancer imaging—making the most of your gamma camera

As MRI threatens the use of bone scintigraphy for skeletal metastases and (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography ((18)FDG-PET) emerges as the main focus in nuclear oncology, the future role of the gamma camera in cancer imaging appears unclear. However, there is a range of pre-existing conventional gamma camera techniques that have incremental benefit over CT and other structural imaging techniques, but are yet to be fully exploited in the care of cancer patients. This article reviews some of the more advanced conventional nuclear medicine techniques for cancer imaging. Often gamma camera techniques perform close to (18)FDG-PET or provide complementary information. Where (18)FDG-PET is diagnostically superior, the incremental cost-effectiveness gain of (18)FDG-PET over conventional gamma camera techniques has not always been fully evaluated.