The reference of normal values of the sacroiliac joint index in bone scintigraphy

Przemysław Sebastjanowicz, Jacek Iwanowski, Hanna Piwowarska-Bilska, Bogumiła Elbl, Bożena Birkenfeld

Abstract


Introduction: Scintigraphy of sacroiliac joints as functional imaging provides unique information on the existing disease process. By using radiopharmaceuticals that allow imaging of the metabolic activity within the joint, it is possible to assess the stage of the disease, even when there are no lesions in radiological images. Quantitative analysis of scintigrams of sacroiliac joints is performed by comparing the uptake in both of them in relation to the uptake in the sacral bone area. The values of sacroiliac (SI/S) indices are influenced by the age of the patient, sex, state of health, and a range of individual biological features. Therefore, reference values of SI/S ratios are very important for medical specialists who describe and diagnose locomotor system diseases. The aim of this paper is to develop a reference range of sacroiliac ratios. The innovativeness of this paper involves examining sacroiliac ratios for various age groups, in children and adult patients, taking their sex into consideration.

Materials and methods: The study comprised a group of 335 people with proper bone scintigraphy. These people were divided into children and patients aged ≥21. Children were divided into 4 age groups (1–5; 6–10; 11–15; 16–20) and adults into 6 age groups (21–30; 31–40; 41–50; 51–60; 61–70; ≥71). Sacroiliac ratios were calculated using the method of three rectangular region of interests located on the left and right sacroiliac joint and on the sacral bone. The sacroiliac ratio was calculated for both joints by dividing the average number of counts within a selected sacroiliac joint by the average number of counts within the sacral bone.

Results: SI/S borderline reference values covered the range of 1.18÷2.28 that was obtained for children aged ≤5 and for the group of 11–15-year-olds. Considerable discrepancies in the values of the coefficient for women and men were seen among 31–50-year-olds.

Conclusions: Borderline reference results for the entire control group cover the range of 1.18 ±2.28. The lower reference value applies to ≤5-year-olds, whereas the higher value applies to the group of 11–15-year-olds. The standard deviation value obtained was highest in paediatric patients. The results indicate the occurrence of signiϐicant individual differences between patients in this age group.


Keywords


sacroiliac joint index; bone scintigraphy; ⁹⁹ƑTc-MDP

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.21164/pomjlifesci.151

Copyright (c) 2016 Przemysław Sebastjanowicz, Jacek Iwanowski, Hanna Piwowarska-Bilska, Bogumiła Elbl, Bożena Birkenfeld

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/pl/