Bone scintigraphy in sports medicine: a review

Bone scintigraphy is of growing interest to the sports physicians in the evaluation of benign disorders of the musculoskeletal system. It is atraumatic and easily applied, and being very sensitive a normal scintigram excludes pathophysiological conditions or mechanical disorders of the bones and joints. The indication is mainly suspicion of stress fractures, where a graduation is possible allowing prognostic interpretation. The finding of stress fractures in female athletes with long-lasting amenorrhea may warrant further interest in the bone mineral content of the skeleton. In the diagnostic evaluation of particularly longer-lasting joint-related pain in younger subjects without obvious degenerative disease, bone scintigraphy is very sensitive to exclude joint affection, but not very specific to reveal an exact diagnosis. In athletes with back pain and radiographically demonstrated spondylolysis, tomography of bone scintigrams (SPECT) may discern between an actively healing process, probably eliciting the pain, and an inactive, healed process not responsible for the back pain. Bone tumors always show increased uptake in bone scintigraphy, but the method does not allow a reliable differentiation between benign and malign etiology.