The key fact remains that the diagnosis and management of complicated osteomyelitis still represents a challenge for physicians. On a global scale especially, posttraumatic osteomyelitis, endo-prosthesis infection (all prosthetic materials, also nails and plates) and diabetic foot, involve high social and economic cost. Optimal treatment in many countries is often not granted so the infection rate is relatively high. Many of these patients require long term clinical management and treatment options are less than objective. The novel technology of SPECT/CT is expected to improve the diagnosis and management of these patients. There is a need to assess the importance of nuclear medicine techniques in the long term follow-up of complicated osteomyelitis.
This CRP will seek to assess the role of hybrid or fusion SPECT/CT imaging in diagnostic work-up and management of patients with complicated osteomyelitis. The success of this will strengthen the referral for this traditional type of nuclear medicine service. The CRP will provide suitable guidelines to improve treatment outcomes of chronic, complicated osteomyelitis and therefore impact on social and economic benefit for many communities.
To establish effective use of molecular imaging using hybrid system (SPECT/CT, PET/CT etc.) in a selected number of developing Member States in the management of disease through Agency support.
Clinically to assess the role of hybrid or fusion SPECT/CT imaging in diagnostic work-up and management of patients with complicated bone infections of profound social and economically significant (i.e.Post-traumatic osteomyelitis, Diabetic foot and Endoprosthesis infection (all prosthetic materials, also nails and plates)
To define the incremental value of combined functional and anatomical imaging by SPECT/CT in the assessment of bone infection over scintigraphy alone.
The CRP provided adequate platform for cooperative research among member states, which emphasized the growing importance of hybrid imaging in the management of certain disease conditions, like bone infection.
The addition of SPECT/CT to planar infection imaging was of value for the diagnosis of bony infection in about 29% of the patients of the current study by defining the precise location of infection to bone and/or soft tissues and by excluding bone involvement adjacent to soft tissue infection. It also helped in defining the extent of osteomyelitis in 22% of the patients found to have osteomyelitis.
The findings of this study suggest that SPECT/CT is of significant value in localization the infection and defining the extent of osteomyelitis in patients with complicated OM, which could help in overall management of such patients