Skeletal scintigraphic appearance of an auto-transplanted osteoarticular plug: epiphyseal transplant

Abstract

Nuclear medicine bone scan is an essential diagnostic imaging tool both for the diagnosis and staging of bone tumors and in the follow-up of these patients. It is very important that we be able to discriminate between normal variants, changes related to altered physical stress, and recurrent disease in order to interpret the bone scan meaningfully. We wish to report the appearance of the isotope bone scan, technetium 99m-labeled methylene diphosphonate ((99m)Tc-MDP), associated with an auto-transplanted osteoarticular plug (epiphyseal transplant) performed following limb amputation. This reconstructive surgery can give a potentially misleading appearance on the nuclear medicine bone scan if one is unfamiliar with this surgical technique.