Bone Scan
A Bone scan in Nuclear Medicine is a procedure which involves two steps:
The patient is asked to arrive 3 hours before their actual scan to receive an injection of a small amount of radioactive tracer that is "tagged" to a calcium like material. Usually the tracer is injected in a vein in the arm of the patient. In some instances, other sites of injection are used especially for those patients that had difficult veins to find. The "radiopharmaceutical" has no side effects and because of this, the patient can be released from the department for 3 hours to give the calcium time to circulate and be taken up by the bone. There are no dietary restrictions so the patient may eat before and after the injection.
After the three hours has elapsed, the patient returns to the Nuclear Medicine department for their scan. The patient is placed on a table a head to toe scan is performed by a "gamma camera".
In most instances, a whole body study is performed since the amount of radiation a patient receives is constant so extra views of the skeleton can be taken if the Radiologists so desires.
A normal bone scan has symmetrical and uniform uptake of the tracer. An abnormal bone scan will appear as increased uptake of the tracer where bone formation is occurring faster than the surrounding bone.
The scan takes usually takes one hour to complete.
Common indications for Bone scan imaging:
* Cancer of the breast, prostate or other forms of cancer that can spread to bone
* Trauma
* Stress fractures
* Shin Splints
* Infections in the bone
* Any type of unusual bone pain
Marquette General Hospital, 580 W College Ave, Marquette MI 49855
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