An overview of the use of bone scintigraphy in sports medicine.

Scintigraphy (radionuclide imaging, bone scan) relies on the metabolic activity of bone and its affinity to uptake a detectable marker whose image can be captured by a scan. Images vary on the basis of the rapidity, amount, and location of label uptake. The role of scintigraphy in sports medicine has primarily been as a diagnostic tool for evaluating stress lesions and stress fractures, for which the study has a high sensitivity. The inherent weakness of a bone scan is its lack of specificity, which may lead to problems in diagnostic interpretation. Higher resolution magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scans provide greater anatomic detail and have largely supplanted the use of scintigraphy in sports medicine.