LOCALIZATION OF ACTIVE OTOSCLEROTIC FOCI BY TYMPANO-COCHLEAR SCINTIGRAPHY (TCS) USING CORRELATIVE IMAGING

High-resolution, tympano-cochlear scintigraphy (TCS) is a useful tool for visualizing changes in labyrinthine bone metabolism in active otos clerosis in vivo. But until now, the activity patterns have mostly bee n rather imprecisely ascribed to the labyrinthine structures; more exa ctly by means of high resolution CT (HR-CT). Experimental studies on T CS using a human temporal bone model revealed that correlative imaging of X-ray photographs and the scintigrams or superimposition with mask s of the temporal bone drawn from the X-rays can facilitate the locali zation of small foci of about 0.5-1 mm. Clinical applications of the v isualization technique, combining functional with structural images, c onfirmed the benefit of this method, improving the accuracy in detecti on and localization of focal activity enrichment of the petrous bone i n cases of active otosclerosis by means of TCS.