Nuclear medicine techniques in the diagnosis of orthopaedic diseases

Nuclear medicine techniques show metabolic processes, allowing the diagnoses of many bone and joint disorders. For most orthopaedic indications three-phase bone scintigraphy is used, showing inflammatory bone and joint diseases, traumatic and post-operative disorders as well as necrotic or malignant changes. In addition to bone scintigraphy, there are radiopharmaceuticals to depict inflammatory processes. Finally, positron emission tomography is a modern imaging technique used mainly for tumor diagnostics, but also for detection of inflammation.