[Scintigraphy and tomography in inflammations and non-malignant tumors in head and neck (author's transl)]

Scintigraphy is a non-invasive technically simple tool for diagnostic in the head and neck. Using nuclides with a short life time the irradiation of the skeleton is less than 1 rd. Scintigraphy in addition to X-ray examination is useful in diagnosis and surveillance of different osteoplastic tumors (like osteoma, osteoplastoma, cementoma, meningioma) and in systemic diseases of the bones (fibrotic dysplasia, Morbus Paget). Concerning inflammatory diseases osteomyelitis is the main indication for scintigraphy, but it is as well usefull in the diagnosis of complications of inflammatory diseases of the sinuses, like mucocelia or non resorbed antibiotics which provoked an inflammatory reaction of the mucosa. There is no indication for scintigraphy regarding its low specificity in common acute or chronic sinusitis.