Search

The nonspecificity of bone scintigraphy has been greatly improved with the addition of hybrid imaging. Due to the potential for increased radiation exposure, it is important for the imaging physician to first justify and then optimize the examination. At the time of the request for examination, it should be determined if a CT in addition to the SPECT study might be warranted to improve care of the child. Duplication of studies is to be avoided. Therefore, if the child has recently had a cross-sectional imaging study (CT or MR) or if MR is to be performed temporally close to bone scintigraphic study that could be fused with post-processing fusion software, then an additional CT might not be warranted. Current computer programs can often adequately fuse outside studies in DICOM format. Axial coverage of the CT should be determined by the clinical question or by the findings on the SPECT portion of the study, as current SPECT/CT scanners can perform the CT portion of the study temporally after the SPECT acquisition.

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans to measure bone mineral density (BMD) at the spine and hip have an important role in the evaluation of individuals at risk of sustaining an osteoporosis-related fracture and in helping clinicians advise patients about the appropriate use of anti-fracture treatment. Compared with alternative bone densitometry techniques, hip and spine DXA examinations have a number of advantages that include a consensus that BMD results should be interpreted using the World Health Organization (WHO) T-score definition of osteoporosis, a proven ability to predict fracture risk, proven effectiveness at targeting anti-fracture therapies, and the ability to monitor response to treatment. This review discusses the evidence for these and other clinical aspects of DXA scanning. Particular attention is paid to the new WHO FRAX® algorithm, which uses clinical risk factors in combination with a hip DXA scan to predict a patient’s 10-year risk of experiencing an osteoporotic fracture. We review the recently published clinical guidelines that incorporate the FRAX fracture risk assessment tool in decisions about patient treatment and discuss the reasons why a quantitative evaluation of fracture risk should become the standard approach to the clinical interpretation of DXA examinations in postmenopausal women and older men.

Bone is the second most common site of metastatic disease after lymph nodes in prostate cancer. This is related to a poor prognosis and is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with prostate carcinoma. Early detection of osseous metastases and the definition of its extent, pattern and aggressiveness are crucial for proper staging and restaging; it is particularly important in high-risk primary disease before embarking on radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy.

In 2004, skeletal scintigraphy was the most frequently performed nuclear medical in vivo examination in Europe and can thus also be considered the most frequently performed procedure worldwide. The quantification of bone metabolism was also among the first applications of tracers in biology. The Letter to Nature published in 1935 by George de Hevesy, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1943, described the use of radioactive strontium to investigate bone metabolism in rats.

In order to find out the influence of aerobic dancing and tennis exercises on middle-aged women’s bone mineral density of calcaneus, we select the healthy middle-aged women aged 30-50 as test subjects. We use quantitative ultrasonic bone imaging and measurement system to test the subjects’ bone mineral density of calcaneus. The result shows that the stiffness and bone mineral density of aerobic dancing group and tennis group is higher than that of control group. The difference between aerobic dancing group and control group is not obvious, however, the difference between tennis group and control group is very significant (p = 0.000). The risk degree of fracture of aerobic dancing group and tennis group is lower than that of control group, but the aerobic dancing group and control group have no obvious difference, while the difference between tennis group and control group is very obvious, which indicates that the role of playing tennis is better than taking aerobic dancing in enhancing stiffness and bone mineral density and reducing risk degree of fracture.

Micro-architectural bone imaging is a nondestructive, non-invasive, and precise procedure that allows the measurement of trabecular and compact bone as well as the repetitive 3D assessment and computation of microstructural and micromechanical properties in patients. The procedure can help improve predictions of fracture risk, clarify the pathophysiology of skeletal diseases, and define the response to therapy. Hierarchical bioimaging in combination with biocomputational approaches are well suited for investigating structurefunction relationships as well as failure mechanisms in normal, osteoporotic and treated bone. We expect these findings to improve our understanding of the influence of densitometric, morphological but also loading factors in the etiology of spontaneous fractures of the hip and the spine. Eventually, this improved understanding may lead to more successful approaches in the prevention of such age- and disease-related fractures.

In the patient with a painful joint replacement, the primary role of nuclear medicine is to differentiate aseptic prosthetic loosening from prosthetic infection. There are several radionuclide procedures available for this purpose. In the United States, radionuclide bone imaging, gallium imaging and in vitro-labeled leukocyte imaging are all used, either alone or in combination.

The accuracy of 3D imaging of bone from computed tomography volume data is experimentally investigated. The head of a cadaver is scanned and the skull is compared to the resulting 3D images. Similarities and differences are described, and the minimal size of visible objects is determined. Effects of an increased slice distance are reported. Furthermore, a technique for distance measurements on 3D images is presented. Measures on 3D data and the skull are compared.