ASSESMENT OF BONE GRAFT VIABILITY USING SCINTIGRAPHY

Abstract

The objective of the study was to evaluate autogenous bone graft viability in surgical bony defects using scintigraphy. The Study Design was case series. This case series was conducted in the department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, deMontmorency College of Dentistry / Punjab Dental Hospital, Lahore from January 2016 to January 2017. Non-probability purposive sampling was done. All patients between 18 to 50 years of age with jaw bone defect from 20 mm to 50 mm were included in the study and all medically unfit patients were excluded. Ten patients received autogenous bone graft into their bone defect. Bone scintigraphy was performed at one and three month intervals and bone formation was clinically correlated radiographically at 6 months. The uptake of radionuclide at the grafted area and uptake of frontal bone was quantified in counts/pixel and recorded as improvement ratio. The results showed that the postoperative course of the study patients was uneventful. There was highly increased uptake of radionuclide, when compared with frontal bone. The mean improvement ratio was 3.6 at one month interval and 3.78 at three month interval. It can be concluded that bone scintigraphy is an effective way to assess bone graft viability and osteoblastic activity can be quantified in terms of counts/pixel but it has to be correlated clinically and radiographiccally because of low specificity.