The value of bone scintigraphy in the follow-up of vertebral osteoporosis.

In an open study, we have assessed the bone/soft tissue uptake index in recent osteoporotic vertebral collapse using scintigraphy. The evolution of these cases was followed-up at 6 months in 22 patients treated with 100 IU of salmon calcitonin plus 500 mg of elemental calcium/10 days per month and in 18 patients treated with 500 mg of elemental calcium only on a daily basis. There were no index differences between groups prior to treatment. At six months, the group treated with calcitonin plus calcium showed a significant decrease from 10.2 +/- 6.4 to 3.2 +/- 1.1 (p less than 0.001), while the calcium only group did not show any significant changes (12.1 +/- 6.6 vs 9.2 +/- 4.6), considering that there were significant differences between groups (p less than 0.001). On a mid-term basis, these results have shown the values of the bone/soft tissue index in the follow-up of osteoporotic vertebral collapse.