The Spanish Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SEMNIM) has highlighted the role of nuclear medicine techniques in breast cancer, considering that they provide essential data to individually adjust the management of each case.
Coinciding with World Breast Cancer Day, SEMNIM and the Spanish Group of Cancer Patients (GEPAC) have joined efforts to explain what the main nuclear medicine tests used in this pathology are and to help people who need to undergo them to know them better, thus reducing uncertainty.
The president of SEMNIM, Virginia Pubul, focused her intervention on the selective sentinel lymph node biopsy (BSGC) and positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET-CT). Regarding the former, she recalled that it is considered the "standard for axillary staging of patients undergoing conservative surgery whose axilla is clinically negative after ultrasound evaluation."
However, she pointed out that recommendations are being oriented towards a more restricted use of this technique, so that it could be dispensed with in some patient profiles after a multidisciplinary discussion.
Among the benefits of BSGC, she indicated that in certain cases it avoids resorting to axillary lymphadenectomy, a more aggressive surgery that is associated with possible complications such as lymphedema, pain, or functional limitation of the arm. Furthermore, the information obtained helps to better define the indications for radiotherapy and systemic treatments.
ABOUT PET/CT
In relation to PET/CT, Pubul pointed out that this exploration "is not routinely indicated in early low-risk breast cancer and its clinical performance increases as the risk of extra-axillary or metastatic disease increases."
Even so, she emphasized that it can be key in selected patients, as it allows for the discovery of previously unsuspected disease and, consequently, modify the stage and therapeutic strategy. She also noted that it can be used to early assess the response to neoadjuvant treatment in some cases, although she clarified that greater evidence is still needed to extend its widespread use.
Pubul has emphasized that in Spain there are "highly qualified professionals with extensive experience" in these techniques, and has requested that differences between territories in patient access to these tests be avoided.
INFORMING EACH PATIENT
For her part, the president of GEPAC, Begoña Barragán, has warned that many patients come to the consultation with a great lack of knowledge about these explorations. "No one has told them what the sentinel node is for or what a PET/CT contributes in their case, and the word nuclear imposes a lot," she has asserted.
In this regard, she has insisted that healthcare professionals must explain to each patient what each procedure is used for, what sensations they may have during the test, and what will happen afterward, and has demanded that this be done "in an understandable language and with time to ask questions."
In this framework, SEMNIM and GEPAC have defended the need to strengthen cooperation between scientific societies and patient associations to convey medical information to people with cancer in an accessible and clear manner.