[Cause of increased focal uptake in the cervical vertebrae in skeletal scintigraphic routine studies]

Focal uptake was seen in the cervical vertebral column of 61 patients in the course of routine bone scintigraphy. These focal increases were subjected to close analysis. In 60 of these patients (98.4%) degenerative lesions became manifest as the cause of the scintigraphic finding already by the bone scintigraphy pattern (paravertebral localisation in the posterior projection and dorsal localisation in the lateral. Two typical examples of metastatic changes are presented to facilitate differentiation. The bone scintigraphic pattern in arthrosis of the intervertebral joint is so typical that x-ray control examinations to confirm the diagnosis can be omitted in many cases.