Nuclear Scintigraphy

Equine Bone Scan

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Nuclear Scintigraphy (bone scan) is used to detect areas of increased bone activity within the body that may be indicative of fractures, stress fractures, overriding dorsal spinous processes, and osteoarthritis. The amount of radioisotope that is present in the skeleton is detected with a gamma camera. The resulting image is similar to temperature map-sites in which increased radioisotope uptake appear brighter.

In sport horses and racehorses, nuclear scintigraphy is an excellent tool because it can detect stress fractures that may not be easily detectable by other common x-rays.