SAN DIEGO, Calif.--Diagnosing chronic osteomyelitis--a common, serious and often incapacitating infection of bone and bone marrow--in children and adults is often difficult, posing a challenge to physicians. Using positron emission tomography (PET)--with the radiotracer fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)--"is a highly effective imaging method for determining the presence or absence of chronic osteomyelitis," detailed researchers from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at SNM's 53rd Annual Meeting June 37 in San Diego.

"Our findings show that FDG PET should be employed as a study of choice for diagnosing chronic osteomyelitis," said Wichana Chamroonrat, a research fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "Recent studies have shown that FDG PET can be used in the evaluation of a variety of inflammatory and infectious processes, and we extended the use of this noninvasive scanning technique in our study," noted the co-author of "FDG-PET Is Highly Accurate for the Diagnosis of Chronic Osteomyelitis."

Osteomyelitis, usually caused by bacteria, occurs most commonly in young children and in older people, but all age groups are at risk, said Chamroonrat. It may be caused by a variety of situations, including an infection from elsewhere in the body, an injury to a bone (an open fracture) or a minor trauma or bacteria in the bloodstream. If osteomyelitis, which affects about two out of every 10,000 people, is not treated successfully, it may develop into chronic osteomyelitis, a persistent, painful infection that is very difficult to eliminate and may lead to loss of bone tissue, said Chamroonrat. "Accurate diagnosis or exclusion of chronic osteomyelitis will substantially decrease the time required for starting appropriate treatments for these patients," said Chamroonrat.

PET is a safe, effective and painless biological imaging exam that is used to detect the presence and
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Contact: Maryann Verrillo
mverrillo@snm.org
703-708-9000
Society of Nuclear Medicine
5-Jun-2006

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