The effectiveness of bone scintigraphy in the management of low back pain

Back and low back pain have been reported as one of the leading causes of activity restriction. While degenerative changes in the spine are among the common causes of low back pain, zygapophyseal (facet) joint pain is seen as the most widely accepted cause of back pain. Standard imaging modalities may have low predictive value in detecting the source of back pain. Thanks to radionuclide bone scintigraphy, painful lesions can be distinguished from age-related changes, especially in patients with chronic low back pain. In this study, we aimed to retrospectively evaluate the clinical results of facet-induced low back pain, which was confirmed by bone scintigraphy, after facet injection treatment.

We completed a retrospective review of patients who underwent diagnostic radionuclide bone scintigraphy imaging for low back pain at our institution from 2019 to 2021. Scintigraphy imaging was often performed in conjunction with traditional diagnostic imaging. The patients underwent injection at the levels that were decided by the referring physician on the basis of the clinical symptoms, the physical examination findings, and findings on existing radiologic images, with performance of bone scanning.

The patients consisted of 24 (47.1 %) males and 27 (52.9 %) females with a mean age of 44.03 ± 9.26 years (range 34-67 years) at initial symptom onset. In the bone scintigraphy, increased radioactive uptake was detected in the facet joints of the lumbar region in 33 of 51 (64.7 %) patients. Statistically significant improvement was found in VAS-ODI and SF-36 scorings in 30 patients (90.1 %) after injection in patients with increased radioactive uptake. Statistically significant improvement was found in VAS-ODI and SF-36 scorings in 12 (66.6 %) patients who had no pathological findings with imaging modalities and were injected according to physical examination. When the two groups were compared with each other, the success rate in the group with increased radioactive uptake was found to be statistically significantly higher (p < 0.01) CONCLUSIONS: Application of this technology may lead to more reliable diagnosis and treatment of painful facet arthropathy. Appropriate diagnostic tests and determination of spinal level localization will provide satisfactory results with correct patient selection.