Fast Facts:
At Stockton, our athletes most often get a bone scan when a stress
fracture is suspected. |
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| What is a Bone Scan?* |
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A bone scan is nuclear imaging technique in which a small amount
of a radioactive material is injected in a person to determine
any unusual bone activity.
Unusual bone activity commonly occurs in bones that are injured.
Examples of injuries that a bone scan would be used for are fractures,
bone infections, tumors, arthritis, types of bone cancer and other
bone abnormalities.
There is no special preparation required prior to the test. You
will be able to eat, drink and sleep like you would normally.
The test is often performed in the radiology department of a hospital
in an area called nuclear medicine.
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| First Steps of the Test |
Approximately three hours prior to the test being performed, you
will need to have an intravenous line placed. You will be given
an injection of a radioactive material into the vein in your arm.
The radioactive material that is injected into the body is called
"technetium." This is a mildly radioactive mineral used
by your bones in their rebuilding process. Your bones are constantly
rebuilding from normal daily living. Since places in your body that
are active in bone repair will use up this substance, the small
amount of radioactivity will concentrate in these areas and "mark"
them. When pictures are taken later, the bony areas will show as
a bright spot on the film relative to the rest of your skeleton.
These bright spots are often referred to as "hot spots".
The radioactivity you are exposed to in this test is such a small
amount that no side effect or complication is known to occur. The
radiation emitted during an X-ray is similar to the amount received
in a bone scan. However, a bone scan should not be performed on
pregnant women. |
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| After the Injection |
You will be asked to wait or return two to four hours after the
technetium injection. It takes this amount of time for the radioactive
material to collect in the bone and then be able to show up in the
test.
The policy of your exam site will determine if you will need to
wear a hospital gown or your street clothes during this time. Once
the two to four hour time lapse has occurred, you return and have
a picture of your body taken by a Gamma Camera. The camera that
is used detects the small amount of radioactivity in the injected
technetium. |
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| Getting the Picture |
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The camera will take a picture of the whole body. The pictures
themselves show the shape of your skeleton made with many small
dots. There are more dots in areas of the skeleton that have concentrated
the technetium, i.e., a hot spot.
The test lasts about an hour and may require moving your body
into various positions. The image appears on a computer and a
hard copy of the screen can be printed. A radiologist reads the
written report of the bone scan. Results of the test are usually
available within a day.
Except for the minor discomfort of having the IV placed, the bone
scan is a painless diagnostic test. A bone scan is often warranted
when the history and clinical findings suggest that further testing
is necessary. This decision is at the discretion of the physician
whose care you are under. Yet it is often the test of choice by
physicians for detecting bony injuries when more conservative
approaches have been exhausted.
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| *By Beth Raitz, MS, ATC in NATA
News, December 2001; p 31-32. |
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