The clinical value of radionuclide bone imaging in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objective To investigate the characteristic of bone imaging and the relationship between bone metastases and age,sex,histotype and clinical stage in nasopharyngeal carcinoma(NPC).Methods Radionuclide bone imaging and skull tomography were performed in 339 patients with NPC.The positive rate between different sex,age,histotype and clinical stage were observed.Results The site of bone metastatic lesions was more common in rib,and the following sites were spine,pelvis,skull and limbs.There was no significant statistic different of positive rate of bone imaging in different sex,age and histotype.The positive rate of bone imaging increased with more advanced clinical stage.Conclusions Skull tomography with SPECT improves the sensitivity in detecting skull base invasion.Radionuclide bone imaging is important for clinical stage,treatment and prognosis of NPC.