Nuclear medicine bone scan

Special information on this examination

Indications (reason for examination):
General diseases affecting the bone metabolism (mostly increasing).

• Deteriorative illnesses (arthrosis)
• Bone inflammations
• Circulatory disorders of the bones (osteonecrosis)
• Healing disturbances after fractures, implantation of joint prostheses or other bone surgeries
• obscure bone pain
• pain remaining after injury without direct evidence of fracture on an X-ray image
• bone tumours or tumour-like changes
• aftercare for malignant diseases that can lead to bone metastases

Drink enough fluid. The patient should fast before the examination.

Examination procedure

After injecting a radioactively marked phosphate complex into a vein, the patient should wait at least two hours until enough activity has accumulated in the bones, in order to record it with a gamma camera. During this time, the patient should drink at least one bottle of water, in order to make the maximum possible radioactive material that has not accumulated in the bones excrete through the kidneys. Shortly before the beginning of the examination the patient will be once again sent to the toilet to empty his bladder. The scintigraphic images are mostly taken in the supine position, whereas the gamma camera is moving along the whole body, first of all, from the front and then from behind. If necessary, additional SPECT images will be taken with the gamma camera rotating around definite parts of the body.

Special examinations

In case of e.g. bone inflammations or loosing of endoprostheses, two additional examination steps will be taken, so that the increased blood flow in the area of concern can also be better analysed. It is called three-phase scintigraphy. During this procedure, the first scintigraphic images will be immediately taken by a gamma camera after the injection of the radiopharmaceutical.

Duration of the examination

Up to 5 hours, depending on the additional options (e.g. SPECT, additional images).