63 year-old female patient with left hip prosthesis. Underwent leucocyte whole body scan to rule out infection. Note in early and delay spot views and whole body images rounded area of increased uptake in the site of the prosthesis and surrounding soft tissues (arrows). Hip X-ray depicted findings compatible with osteomielytis (not shown).
Leucocyte scintigraphy has adequate sensitivity ans specificity to detect osteomielytis in peripheral areas but not in the spine. Likewise, the limitation is expensiveness and procedure complexity, and so not performed easily in many nuclear medicine laboratories.
Stumpe KD, Strobel K. 18F FDG-PET imaging in
musculoskeletal infection.Q J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2006 Jun;50(2):131-42.