Radiopharmaceutical developer Navidea Biopharmaceuticals is touting a study presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) 2015 meeting that suggests its Lymphoseek agent causes less pain than imaging with a filtered technetium-99m (Tc-99m) sulfur colloid radiotracer.
In the randomized, double-blind trial, researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) measured injection site pain in 52 patients with breast cancer undergoing lymphoscintigraphy. They found that patients who received the sulfur colloid tracer had significantly greater pain after injection than those who received Lymphoseek.
Pain was evaluated with a visual analog scale and a short-form questionnaire at different time points after injection. Baseline pain scores were similar between the groups.
At one minute postinjection, patients receiving sulfur colloid experienced a mean change in pain of 16.8 mm, compared with 0.2 mm in the Lymphoseek group. Overall, the group receiving Lymphoseek showed significantly less change in pain scores compared with patients receiving sulfur colloid at one to three minutes postinjection, Navidea said.
