[Scintigraphic findings in a patient with sickle-cell thalassemia and recurrent pain attacks].

The case of an eight years old African boy who suffers from sickle cell-thalassemia is presented. In the course of the disease frequent pain attacks occurred within the abdomen and extremities, recently also within the trunk. Local pain, at some occasions in combination with local swelling and always positive laboratory parameters for inflammation, hindered a solely clinical differentiation between bone infarcts and osteomyelitis. Bone scintigraphy, eventually in combination with bone marrow scintigraphy, can assist the clinician in the differentiation of aseptic bone infarcts versus secondary osteomyelitis. Based on the presented case scintigraphic results for bone infarcts, osteomyelitis and special scintigraphic pattern seen in sickle cell disease are presented. Furthermore, problems regarding the interpretation of the scintigraphies in relation to the delayed time after the beginning of pain attacks are discussed.