[Scintigraphic findings in fracture of the vertebral body].

The "region-of-interest technique" was applied for taking 85 quantifying skeleton scintigrams in 60 patients suffering from 75 stable impression fractures of the inferior thoracic spine or the lumbar spine. The skeleton scintigrams were made between 3 days and 6 years after the accident, predominantly between the first and twelfth posttraumatic week. The evaluation curves of the scintigraphic quotients following to fractures of the vertebral bodies show a linear increase of the quotient until the fourth week and afterwards an exponential decrease. The quantifying skeleton scintigraphy is not only valuable in diagnostic evaluation but allows also to assess the age of fractures of the vertebral bodies. In the future, quantifying skeleton scintigraphy may thus play an important role in the examination of fractures of the vertebral bodies.