Bone scanning in the evaluation of exercise-related stress injuries

Bone scintigraphy was used to evaluate 34 patients with the physical findings and history of stress fracture of the lower extremity. Of the 34, 21 had abnormal studies, 11 involving the femoral neck, 9 the tibia, and 1 the femur. All of these had abnormal scintiscans prior to or at the time of the appearance of radiographic changes. Of the 9 with abnormal tibial studies, radiographic changes never evolved in 3. No false negatives were found among the 13 with normal scintiscans.