Bone scintigraphy

Scintigraphy is a nuclear-medical technique that uses a radioactively tagged substance, a so-called tracer, which is administered by intravenous injection. It depends on the organ to be examined which kind of tracer has to be employed. After the tracer has accumulated in the target organ, its radioactive tagging can be detected and reproduced by a special camera. The tracer accumulates in tissues that are well supplied with blood (e.g. tissues where an infection or a tumor is present), and the larger the tracer accumulation, the stronger is the signal detected by the camera.

In lymphoma diagnostics, a skeleton or bone marrow scintigraphy is used for verifying or ruling out bone involvement.