Purpose: Staging of cancer is essential to formulate appropriate treatment plans and to help predict prognosis. A solitary region of increased radionuclide uptake ("hot spot") on a bone scan may represent a metastasis or a masquerading lesion. Biopsy may be required to determine its histologic nature, but localization of the site may be difficult because bone scans provide poor spatial resolution.
Methods: In two patients with breast carcinoma, radioactive technetium was administered intravenously and a gamma probe was used preoperatively and intraoperatively to identify the site of cranial bone involvement.
Results: The lesions were resected; one was a benign fibro-osseous lesion and one was a metastatic breast adenocarcinoma.
Conclusions: A gamma probe may be helpful in localizing the site of radioactive uptake identified by bone scan.