Indium-111 octreotide scintigraphy of Merkel cell carcinomas and their metastases

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Octreotide, published as a clinical trial.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of SRS and to determine its role compared to conventional investigations.

Why It Was Studied

Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (SRS) may be of interest for staging Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC).

Who Took Part

The study group was 2000, patients.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

From 1993 to December 2000, 20 patients (10 females and 10 males, aged from 38 to 88, mean 66 years) were included prospectively.

At the time of SRS: 12 patients had been diagnosed as having stage I disease, 6 stage II and 4 stage III.

How the Study Was Run

Two patients had two SRS studies during the course of their disease.

SRS was performed with Indium-111 pentetreotide (Octreoscan), a radiolabelled somatostatin analogue.

Patients were treated according to the clinical stage.

A regular follow-up was scheduled every three months.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Carcinoma, Merkel Cell, False Negative Reactions, False Positive Reactions, Indium Radioisotopes, Lymph Nodes, Neoplasm Staging and Octreotide.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial of Octreotide in 2000, patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2001 (Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Octreotide compound page, all human trials.