Spine Research

The Potential Role of Radionuclide Imaging in Osteoporotic Vertebral Fracture and Sacral Fracture

Vertebral fractures (VF) and sacral insufficiency fractures (SIFs) are very common in osteoporotic patients with low-back pain and are often overlooked in clinical practice. Plain radiography is usually the first examination. However, on many occasions, further evaluation with CT scan, MRI and nuclear medicine studies is necessary. Nuclear medicine examinations have important applications for the detection and timing of fractures and prediction of response to therapy. Bone scan is a simple study for the evaluation of osteoporotic patients with low-back pain to detect VF or SIFs, to identify an alternative diagnosis, to assess the age of fracture, and to predict the response to vertebroplasty. Bone scan is also helpful to detect other foci of insufficiency fractures, or other co-existent disease in the rest of the

Reza Vali, Lydia Bajno, Mahnaz Kousha and Charron Martin