METASTASES SEEN ON SPECT IMAGING DESPITE A NORMAL PLANAR BONE-SCAN

Although bone scintigraphy is an extremely sensitive method for the de tection of focal bone disease, small lesions below the resolution of p lanar imaging may be missed. This is a report of a patient with carcin oma of the breast who showed tumor progression 1 year after initial tr eatment. Complete evaluation was performed in order to detect the orig in of increased level of a tumor marker, Although planar bone scintigr aphy could not demonstrate any lesion in the spine, multiple metastase s were detected in the lumbar and the thoracic spines on SPECT imaging . Only some of these lesions were seen with MRI. Repeat planar bone im aging 6 weeks later showed multiple bone lesions in the lumbar and tho racic areas.