1. The Bone Scan By Lance Lewis An Illustration of a Bone Scan Taking Place

2. What Is a Bone Scan A bone scan is a nuclear test in order to find abnormalities in the bone. It is used to diagnose diseases in the bone or that have spread to the bone, locating the sources for bone pain, diagnosing fractures, and detecting fractures that may not be seen in an x-ray, detecting damage to bones due to infection or illness, and arthritis

3. The Tracer A tracer is used when performing a bone scan A tracer is radioactive material that is injected into the blood stream via a syringe or IV This is used so that when a gamma camera is used during the test abnormalities can be detected The tracer then leaves the body through the urinary system

4. When is a Bone Scan Used? A bone scan is used when something (i.e. a fracture) may be undetectable by a conventional X-Ray It will detect problems like a fracture because the tracer will attach to bone repair cells allowing the lab technician to see the problem

5. How a Bone Scan Works The lab technician will inject a tracer into the patients blood stream The tracer then attaches to areas where the bone is repairing itself, the rest of the tracer gets flushed out through the urinary system The lab technician then does the procedure where the patients has pictures taken of them by a gamma camera, however, with small lesions a single photon emission computed tomography camera will be used

6. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography SPECT is very similar to conventional nuclear medicine planar imaging using a gamma camera However, it is able to provide true 3D information It is also used when the lesion of a patient is extremely small

7. The Risks of a Bone Scan All tests with radioactive tracers have some risk Doctors try to limit this risk by limiting the time of exposure of radiation However if one is exposed too much, diseases can occur such as cancer There is a very minimal risk of an allergic reaction

8. What the Final Pictures Look Like

9. My Research Sources http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bone-scan/MY00306/DSECTION=risks http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bone-scan/MY00306/DSECTION=why%2Dits%2Ddone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_scan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECT_scan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergic_reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_camera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_fracture c

10. My Media Sources http://www.davidpaulkoury.com/files/1_bone_scan_showing_tumor.jpg http://www.walgreens.com/marketing/library/graphics/images/en/19310.jpg ht tp://www.eorthopod.com/images/ContentImages/spine/spine_thoracic/compression_fx/thor acic_compression_fx_intro01.jpg http://www.dotmed.com/images/listingpics/181185.jpg http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/images/ency/fullsize/9341.jpg http://www.newscentre.bham.ac.uk/images/Dividing_Cancer_Cell-small.jpg http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content-nw/full/63/8/1519/FIG2 http://www.cms.hhs.gov/determinationprocess/downloads/figure1.jpg