Preface
Medicine is at
its best when it can attract a multidisciplinary team
to
the solution of an important patient-related problem. It can
be stated
without equivocation that patient selection is amongst the
top
priorities since only then can appropriate resources be matched to
the appropriate management of
disease.
This book is
the result of such a multidisciplinary effort.A
general
surgeon with an interest in cancer,a
general nuclear medicine physi-
cian, a medical physicist and a pathologist have teamed up to
bring
into focus the present role of lymphoscintigraphy and the
detection
of the sentinel lymph node in the surgical management of
cancer.
The combined
expertise is significant. The bridge to span (sur-
gical procedures and the operating theatre environment,
radiation
detectors and imaging devices and their safe operation,
radio-
pharmaceuticals and their appropriate selection and
use, patho-
logical evidence gathering and interpretation and last but
certainly
not least, effective clinical decision making) is wide, and
the subject
of this succinct and focussed
text.
It is our
combined hope that by scanning through the pages of
this
volume, surgeons, general and nuclear medicine physicians,
radio-
logists and radiation health workers, will all find relevant
infor-
mation that is presented in a concise and hopefully also
critical
manner.
This volume
also represents another example of the power
of
modern tracer technology in medicine.As more data are gathered
in
this rapidly expanding field it is already time to consider
how we
can all improve existing methodologies. Patients will
clearly be the
M.R.S. Keshtgar
W. A. Wa dding
ton
S.R. Lakhani
P. J. E ll
