The purpose of the sestamibi scan is to detect parathyroid - TopicsExpress

The purpose of the sestamibi scan is to detect parathyroid adenomas in patients with sporadic primary hyperparathyroidism. Sestamibi will assist the surgeon in localizing a parathyroid adenoma . The use of the Sestamibi scan for confirmation of the diagnosis hyperparathyroidism is discouraged--the sensitivity is not high enough to be used in this manner. We will repeat this concept over and over because this scan is miss-used about 80% of the time! This scan is NOT to be used to confirm that a patient has parathyroid disease. This scan is NOT to be used to determine which parathyroid patient should have surgery and which patient should not.