Evaluation of Chronic Widespread Pain Bone Scan Protocol
Aim: To evaluate the usefulness of chronic widespread pain bone scan protocol
Method: We retrospectively evaluated the usefulness of this bone scan protocol. 21 patients with widespread bone and joint pain were evaluated with three months clinical follow up. The scan was designed to rule out red flags in musculoskeletal disorders and to assess the degree and distribution of inflammatory and degenerative disorders. Tc99m-MDP tracer was used. All patients had blood pool images of the hand and feet, whole body blood pool image, delayed whole body scan, static images of the hands and feet and SPECT/CT of required region. Clinical usefulness of these studies were assessed interms of explaining the cause of the patient's symptom, ruling out redflags, selecting areas for further imaging and selecting treatment targets over three months following the scan.
Results: 21 patients were evaluated. One patient had red flag finding of multiple rib fractures. This turned out to be functioning adrenal adenoma causing Cushing syndrome and osteoporotic fractures. Majority of the patients had degenerative disease. There were no cases of bony metastases or osteomyelitis. Clinical follow up results will be presented in detail in the poster.
Conclusion: Wide spread bone and joint pain symptoms are very common and often require a number of investigations to identify the cause. Clinicians and patients are often want to rule out redflags. In this study we demonstrate that widespread pain protocol bone scan will be helpful to rule out redflags, identify areas for further imaging and select targets for treatment.