Tumour uptake of 57-cobalt-bleomycin in patients with breast cancer

17 patients with breast carcinoma were studied with 57-cobalt-bleomycin scintigraphy. Scans showed increased tumour uptake in all patients. Results expressed as percentage of the injected dose (ID) normalised by the size of the tumour region (% ID/pixel) showed higher tumour uptake in patients with T3-T4 breast carcinomas (n = 5) than in patients with T1-T2 breast cancer (n = 12) (8.4 ± 0.55 × 10^-3 vs. 5.25 ± 1.71 × 10^-3 % ID/pixel, respectively, P <0.05). An inverse correlation between tumour uptake of 57-cobalt-bleomycin and progesterone receptor concentration was also found in all tumours tested (r = -0.60, P <0.05, n = 10) and was confirmed in the group of patients with T2 breast carcinomas (r = -0.89, P <0.05, n = 6). We conclude that a quantitative analysis of 57-cobalt-bleomycin uptake can give additional information suitable for the presurgical characterisation of a tumour.