Medical Imaging

Medical Imaging 1
Medical imaging
By
Course
Professor
University
City
Date

Medical Imaging 2
Question one
Bone scan refers to a technique in medicine that utilizes nuclear energy to check for the
areas that are damaged or abnormal in the bones of individual patients. It is also called
scintigraphy. This utilization is usually enhanced by osteoblast cells which immensely participate
in bone rebuilding. Therefore, Tc-99m MDP bone scan as one of the renown imaging technique
is very sensitive to bone reactions and tumor fractures including metastasis. Before the bone is
scanned, it is always recommended that the patient must be introduced to a small amount of
radioactive substance via an injection especially the medronic acid thereafter the gamma camera
takes effect. In other words, a small amount of the radioactive substance is introduced into the
blood stream of the patient through an injection so that it collects in the bones’ abnormal cells
Medronic acid has its origin in phosphate, it undergoes exchange with the phosphate of the bone
to certain parts that have an active growth of bone, in the process causing attachment of the
radioisotope to that part of exchange. Nevertheless, there are usually some cases where the need
to view the small lesions is required particularly that are less than one centimeter, SPECT
technique may be required only after authorization. Such lesions are most likely to be found in
the spine.
Question Two
Objective 1
Metastasis of the bone in neuroblastoma is known as a category of cancer metastases that
normally results from primary invasion of tumor to the bone. However, it is rare to have primary
tumors that originate from the bone such as osteosarcoma and chondrosarcoma.
Objective 2

Medical Imaging 3
According to Chang (2016), the following were the values obtained from detection of the
skeletal metastatic: specificity, sensitivity and accuracy for of FDG PET Scan were 97 percent,
98 percent and 98 percent respectively while those of Tc-99m MDP Bone Scan were 83 percent,
98 percent and 93 percent respectively. The researchers also found out that one of the commonly
missed lesion that could not be identified by the bone scan were in sacrum, spine and pelvis.
Nevertheless, in all the cases, patients were found to have additional sites for diseases of skeletal
metastases. They further state that at one instance the bone scan accidentally identified
metastasis lesions while the FDG PET Scan wrongly identified three lesions. The researches
wrap up their research by their concluding remarks insists that FDG PET Scan is an accurate or
precise technique that could effectively detect the skeletal metastases, and it is more superior
than bone scan especially when detecting sensitive body parts like spine and pelvis.
Langsteger et al. (2016) established that F-NaF PET Correlation with references
standards reflected a 0.96 sensitivity, a 0.91 specificity and a 0.89 predictive value; also, 0.97
negative predictive value and an accuracy value of 0.93. They also established that in a group of
patients that had the scan performed upon, an average of 25% of them had their results leading to
alterations in management of the patient.
Domain Patient selection Index Test Reference
Test
Flow and Timing
Description The selection of the
patients was systematic
Index test is the
quantitative
expression of
the burden of
Index test was
calculated at
baseline and
at 3,6 and 9
A patient who,
upon being
scanned and a
tumor was