The Bone Scan

By Lance Lewis

An Illustration of a Bone Scan Taking Place

What Is a Bone Scan

A bone scan is a nuclear test in order to find abnormalities in the bone.

It is used to diagnose diseases in the bone or that have spread to the bone, locating the sources for bone pain, diagnosing fractures, and detecting fractures that may not be seen in an x-ray, detecting damage to bones due to infection or illness, and arthritis

The Tracer

A tracer is used when performing a bone scan

A tracer is radioactive material that is injected into the blood stream via a syringe or IV

This is used so that when a gamma camera is used during the test abnormalities can be detected

The tracer then leaves the body through the urinary system

When is a Bone Scan Used?

A bone scan is used when something (i.e. a fracture) may be undetectable by a conventional X-Ray

It will detect problems like a fracture because the tracer will attach to bone repair cells allowing the lab technician to see the problem

How a Bone Scan Works

The lab technician will inject a tracer into the patients blood stream

The tracer then attaches to areas where the bone is repairing itself, the rest of the tracer gets flushed out through the urinary system

The lab technician then does the procedure where the patients has pictures taken of them by a gamma camera, however, with small lesions a single photon emission computed tomography camera will be used

Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

SPECT is very similar to conventional nuclear medicine planar imaging using a gamma camera

However, it is able to provide true 3D information

It is also used when the lesion of a patient is extremely small

The Risks of a Bone Scan

All tests with radioactive tracers have some risk

Doctors try to limit this risk by limiting the time of exposure of radiation

However if one is exposed too much, diseases can occur such as cancer

There is a very minimal risk of an allergic reaction

What the Final Pictures Look Like

My Research Sources

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bone-scan/MY00306/DSECTION=risks

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bone-scan/MY00306/DSECTION=why%2Dits%2Ddone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_scan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECT_scan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_reaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_camera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_fracture

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My Media Sources

http://www.davidpaulkoury.com/files/1_bone_scan_showing_tumor.jpg

http://www.walgreens.com/marketing/library/graphics/images/en/19310.jpg

http://www.eorthopod.com/images/ContentImages/spine/spine_thoracic/compression_fx/thoracic_compression_fx_intro01.jpg

http://www.dotmed.com/images/listingpics/181185.jpg

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/images/ency/fullsize/9341.jpg

http://www.newscentre.bham.ac.uk/images/Dividing_Cancer_Cell-small.jpg

http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content-nw/full/63/8/1519/FIG2

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/determinationprocess/downloads/figure1.jpg