Author(s): Dr Zubair Ali Khan, Dr Abdul-Aziz Al-Sugair

Hospital: Western General Hospital, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre

Reference: RAD Magazine, 41, 483, 21-23

Excerpt: 

The skeleton is a metabolically active organ that undergoes continuous remodelling throughout life. Normal healthy bones are dynamic structures with inherent basal levels of turnover sustained by balanced osteoblastic and osteoclastic activity. Increased bone turnover (ie osteoblastic activity) is the central mechanism of attempts at bone healing in case of any insult, whether it is benign or malignant.

Radionuclide 99mTc-MDP is a tracer that gets adsorbed into bone in proportion to bone turnover and thus provides an “osteoblastic map” of the entire skeleton. 99mTc-MDP planar bone scintigraphy has historically been employed in regular staging and re-staging of many cancers as well as for answering specific questions in orthopaedics. Many malignancies, eg breast, prostate, lung, thyroid and renal cell carcinomas, have a tendency to metastasize to bone.