Bone Scintigraphy (AAEP 2005)

Scintigraphy is an imaging modality that reveals “hot spots” of bone and muscle metabolism that can indicate remodeling due to stress, fractures, or other causes. Many practitioners use it as a screening tool to pinpoint the location of a bone
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Using scintigraphy (also called bone scans), "I have imaged 5,000 horses in my university referral practice over the last 12 years and have enormous respect for this imaging tool," said Michael Ross, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, professor of equine surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center. He presented a discussion of this imaging modality at the 2005 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, held Dec. 3-7 in Seattle, Wash.

Scintigraphy is an imaging modality that reveals "hot spots" of bone and muscle metabolism that can indicate remodeling due to stress, fractures, or other causes. Many practitioners use it as a screening tool to pinpoint the location of a bone problem. "Many questions about clinical lameness that were not answered with radiography are now understandable using scintigraphy," he noted.

After imaging more than 400 horses per year for the last several years, Ross believes scintigraphy is a valuable tool in lameness diagnosis, particularly since it can be used to image the upper and lower limb, unlike magnetic resonance imaging. His clinic is also set up to handle views of the sole using a small camera in the ground.

"There’s nothing like a hotspot in scintigraphy to make you refocus on your X rays," he noted. "It prompts you to take special views to find the problem." Seeing problems on scintigraphy with similar clinical signs has caused him to make changes in his radiographic protocols for horses with certain clinical signs

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Christy West has a BS in Equine Science from the University of Kentucky, and an MS in Agricultural Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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