How does nuclear medicine do a bone scan?

Very simple: 2 types of bone scans - (1) whole body bone scan (wbbs) & (2) three phase bone scan. In either case you get an injection of a radioactive material and lay under a gamma camera for 45 min. And an image of your bone is produced. In wbbs (done for cancer metastases), you return 2 hours after injection. The 3-phase bone scan (done for infection), pictures are taken during & 15 min after injection.

Whole body or PET-CT: Bone seeking radiopharmaceuticals distribute in proportion to local bone metabolism. Phosphate compounds labelled with technetium 99m are most commonly used. A whole body image is obtained front and back while the patient lies flat on a long table. Flourine 18 can also be used with positron emission tomography volumetric imaging for more precise imaging in conjunction with ct.

Tc-99m-MDP Bone Scan: Bone scan often provides an earlier diagnosis and demonstrates more lesions than are found by radiographic procedures.Tc-99m-mdp (methylene diphosphonate) is a bone seeking agent that concentrates in the mineral phase of bone. 2-3 hours after injection, 50%-60% of the activity localizing in bone and the remainder is cleared by the kidneys. F18-naf bone scans are done with pet cameras, r + expensive.

Isotope injection: Radiotracer technetium 99m mehylene diphosphonate or similar agent is injected intravenously to be transported by blood stream to the bones. Full skeletal deposition usually takes 2 to 3 hours. This agent goes where there is increased bone metabolism or repair of bone, such as fractures, tumors, arthritis, and infection. It detects subtle changes, sometimes not noticed on routine imaging.