Bone: Guidelines
SNM Guideline for Sodium F-18-Fluoride PET/CT Bone Scans (2010)
The purpose of these guidelines is to assist practitioners in following a reasonable course of action based on current knowledge, available resources, and the needs of the patient to deliver effective and safe medical care.
18F-Fluoride is a highly sensitive bone-seeking PET tracer used for detection of skeletal abnormalities. The uptake mechanism of 18F-Fluoride resembles that of 99mTc-MDP with better pharmacokinetic characteristics including faster blood clearance and two-fold higher uptake in bone. The use of novel hybrid PET/CT systems, has significantly improved the specificity of 18F- Fluoride imaging as the CT component of the study allows morphologic characterization of the functional lesion and more accurate differentiation between benign lesions and metastases. The document has been endorsed by the EANM Board.
The guidelines include information related to the indications, acquisition, processing and interpretation of bone scans in children, focusing primarily on 99mTc-labelled diphosphonate scintigraphy, and also recommendations with regard to the emerging use of PET with 18F-fluoride.
BSR and BHPR guidelines for the management of polymyalgia rheumatica
The aim of these guidelines, provided by the British Society for Rheumatology, is a safe and specific diagnostic process for PMR, using continued assessment, and discouragement of hasty initial treatment. Their scope is to provide advice for the diagnosis of PMR, management and monitoring of disease activity, complications and relapse. The management of GCA is not covered and is published separately.
BSR and BHPR guidelines for the management of giant cell arteritis
The aim of these guidelines, provided by the British Society for Rheumatology, is to encourage the prompt diagnosis and management of GCA, with emphasis on the prevention of visual loss. Their scope is to provide evidence-based advice for the assessment and diagnosis of GCA, for initial and further management and for monitoring of disease activity, complications and relapse.
SNM Procedure Guideline for Bone Scintigraphy (2003)
The purpose of this guideline is to assist nuclear medicine practitioners in recommending, performing, interpreting, and reporting the results of bone scintigraphy - a diagnostic study used to evaluate the distribution of active bone formation in the body.
(EANM) Bone Scintigraphy: procedure guidelines for tumour imaging (2003)
The purpose of this document is to provide general information about bone scintigraphy in oncology. The corresponding guidelines from the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) have been taken into consideration, reviewed and partially integrated with this text. Bone scintigraphy is an highly sensitive method for demonstrating disease in bone. Phosphate analogues can be labelled with 99mTc and are used for bone imaging because of their good localisation in the skeleton and rapid clearance from soft tissues.