Over the past two to three decades, gallium compounds have gained importance in the fields of medicine and electronics. In clinical medicine, radioactive gallium and stable gallium nitrate are used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents in cancer and disorders of calcium and bone metabolism. In addition, gallium compounds have displayed anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive activity in animal m...

Received 7/5/2002; revised 8/7/2002; accepted 8/19/2002. For correspondence or reprints contact: Chung-Huei Hsu, M.D., Department of Nuclear Medicine, Taipei Medical University Hospital, 252 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan, R.O.C. Tel: (886)2-27395748, Fax: (886)2-27395749, E-mail: [email protected] Gallium-67 (Ga) citrate has been used for detecting infection and inflammation ever since its...

Occult infections caused by indolent organisms may produce persistent back pain that may be difficult to diagnose. The usual findings considered indicative of spinal infection are not reliable in these cases. The authors describe nine patients who presented with occult infections of the lumbar spine. Two of the nine had no antecedent lumbar surgeries nor open wounds. The predominant organisms w...

This paper presents a ten-year course of the disease in a patient with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour NEN G1, and with confirmed single, asymptomatic metastasis to the left cardiac ventricle. Initially, the cardiac metastasis was visible only on a positron emission tomography (PET) scan using gallium-68-labelled somatostatin analogue; the sensitivity of an echocardiography scan was lower. Des...

colonic obstruction. Improved description of the utility of the gallium scan and other nuclear medicine procedures would also be helpful. As the authors state, however, the text is not intended to be a compendium of radiographic technique. Instead, they present a concise overview of the field of radiology and offer preliminary instruction in the interpretation of basic images. The authors succe...

Infection of the symphysis pubis is a rare condition accounting for less than 1% of cases of haematogenous osteomyelitis (McHenry et al., 1975). Pelvic surgery, trauma and drug abuse have been reported as predisposing causes. Pain and localized tenderness are the usual presenting complaints. (Busto et al., 1982). We report a case of osteomyelitis of the symphysis pubis in a patient with no pred...

Gallium, a pharmacologically important metal, resembles iron with respect to transferrin (Tf) binding and Tf receptor-mediated cellular uptake. In the present study, we examined the effect of gallium on Tf-independent iron uptake by HL60 cells. In contrast to the inhibitory effect of Tf-gallium on Tf-iron uptake, gallium nitrate, in a time-, temperature-, and concentration-dependent manner, sti...

Whole-body scanning using gallium-67-citrate gave consistently accurate tumour localisation in patients with seminoma of the testis. Thirteen out of 15 scans performed in patients with disseminated seminoma in relapse gave good imaging in all disease areas. Scans in patients with teratoma of the testis were less consistently positive; of nine scans performed in patients with disseminated terato...

Atypical mycobacterium is rarely seen as a cause of chronic mastoiditis but has been increasingly recognized over the past few years. Mycobacterium abscessus is the most pathogenic and chemotherapy-resistant, rapid-growing mycobacterium of all the four groups. This paper presents a case of a 57-year-old woman who had chronic mastoiditis with recurrent exacerbations. The initial computed tomogra...

Captopril has not yet been included in the list of drugs causing hypersensitivity lung disease. We report a patient with hypertension, congestive heart failure, and chronic renal failure who, when rechallenged with captopril, developed upper lung field infiltrates associated with productive cough and striking peripheral eosinophilia. Gallium scan, transbronchial biopsy histologic findings, and ...