title: [Diffusely increased uptake in the skull in normal bone scans].
abstract: Diffusely increased skull uptake (a hot skull) is often seen in patients with bone metastases and metabolic diseases. This finding is also, however, noticed in normal bone scans of aged women. To determine whether the hot skull could be considered a normal variant in elderly women and is associated to menopause, we studied 282 normal bone scans (166 women and 116 men without metabolic and hormonal disease; age range 11 to 84 yr). We divided the patients into eight age groups--ages 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80-89 yrs. Measurements of skull uptake were obtained from anterior total body views using contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). CNR for the skull was calculated using the following equation: (counts skull - counts femur)/square root of counts skull+counts femur, where the denominator signifies a measure of the noise and the numerator represents the contrast between the skull and the midfemur. Counts skull and femur are the number of average counts per one pixel recorded over the skull and midfemur, respectively. The sex dependent difference in skull uptake began to develop in the age group 30-39 yrs (p less than 0.05). The skull showed greater activity in women than in men for age groups from 30-39 to 80-89 yrs. In the age groups 50-59 and 60-69, the difference was particularly large (p less than 0.001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Hyogo Medical Center for Adults.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suematsu
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Motohara
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fujiwara
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nishii
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Komiyama
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yanase
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mizutani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012016:Reference Values; D012737:Sex Factors; D012886:Skull / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D013669:Technetium Tc 99m Medronate / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics
chemical_list: C024226:technetium Tc 99m hydroxymethylene diphosphonate; D013669:Technetium Tc 99m Medronate