[Clinical usefulness of thallium-201 chloride in the diagnosis of tumor (II)--An evaluation in bone, soft tissue and mediastinal tumors]

The clinical usefulness of scintigraphy with thallium-201 (201Tl) chloride injection was evaluated in 79 patients with suspected bone, soft tissue or mediastinal tumors. No abnormal changes of subjective or objective signs and clinical test values were observed post injection. It is considered that 201Tl chloride is a safe radiopharmaceutical. In comparison with benign tumors, malignant tumors showed longer retention or more increased uptake of the 201Tl in the lesions on delayed images. The results suggested that the evaluation of changes of 201Tl uptake might be useful to some extent to differentiate malignant tumor from benign tumor. It is considered that 201Tl scintigraphy is useful for evaluating the location and extent of tumor and differentiating malignant from benign tumor.