Monitoring therapy in breast cancer

Abstract

Breast cancer remains one of the most common cancers in the developed world. New treatments are proving effective against both limited disease and metastases. Nuclear medicine is in a unique position as it is one of the only methods used to image the breast which is linked to cell cycle changes, the receptors on the cell surface and the cells' response to chemotherapy. Nuclear medicine is unaffected by the anatomical changes seen post-chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is uniquely placed to become a major methodology in the continued assessment of the breast cancer patient. However, before this can happen the utility of nuclear medicine techniques must be proved in multi-centre trials.