Abstract

Measurements of the bone mineral density in the lumbar spine and proximal femur using dual-photon absorptiornetry have been done and whole body sleletal scintigraphies with Tc-99m MDP have been performed on 22 postmenopausal women with mild to moderate osteoporosis. The scintigraphic findings of the 13 patients were absolutely normal. There were only 3 patients with early signs due to the osteoporotic complications on bone scintigraphy. But when the measurements of bone mineral density were compared with those of the osteoporotic patients with the normal scintigraphic findings, there was no statistical significance between them. In bone scintigraphy of six cases, degenerative joint findings were determined. As a conclusion, it has been suggested that skeletal scintigraphic studies can give more desirable information than bone mineral density measurements on the detection of focal lesions due to osteoporosis.