This is an example of a normal bone scan with the front view at the left and back view at the right.
Radionuclide bone scan or bone scintigraphy.
Purpose
- To detect or rule out bone cancer when X-rays reveal no abnormalities but a malignancy is suspected.
- To detect bone infection.
- To determine the location of an abnormality before bone biopsy or surgery is performed.
- To diagnose stress fractures that do not always appear on X-rays.
- Injury resulting from trauma may be missed within the first 24 hours.
- In people with poor kidney function, the bone may not absorb sufficient radionuclide to perform the scan.
The distribution of the radioactive material (radionuclide) helps evaluate the structure of the bone and the processes inside bone tissue (see figure). When bone tissue is healthy, the radionuclide is spread in a uniform fashion. An increased concentration of the material is usually found in diseased areas. Such areas may correspond to infection, inflammation, fracture, a cancerous tumor in which the cells are dividing rapidly, or another abnormality. The scan can pick up these abnormalities in early stages when X-ray findings are completely normal (X-rays detect them only after they produce structural deformities).
