Tracing an unhandled suspect lesion through a gamma probe.

This article describes the efforts of the authors in developing a handheld gamma detection probe and addresses a tentative surgical protocol for tracing an unhandled suspect lesion through an albumine-aggregate 99Tcm tracer operative mapping. The electronic and software design for the system is discussed as well as its electronic and nuclear calibration. A phantom model mimicking a breast was built in order to help in the calibration of the system. Earliest results in an external detection procedure using the model and a 0.3 ml tracer sample (7 MBq activity) are presented.