Transcript The Bone Scan

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
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/thor
acic_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