Skeletal scintimaging and radiography in the diagnosis and management of Paget's disease.

Experiences in sue of skeletal scintimaging, primarily with 99mTc EHDP, is reported in 108 patients with Paget's disease. The results are compared with other reports and suggest that the mean age of this sample at the time of initial diagnosis and study is somewhat younger than patients in series reported in the literature. In correlation of scintimaging with skeletal radiography only approximately 67% of lesions are seen with the latter. Lesions seen only on scintimaging primarily are associated with early symptomatic lesions and lesions seen only on radiography with older sclerotic "burned out" type lesions. Scintimaging reveals a relatively low incidence of monostotic distribution of lesions, and is superior to skeletal radiography for diagnosis of metastatic bone disease. Qualitative skeletal scintimaging is valuable for objective assessments of therapeutic management by new modes of therapy while clinical radiography is not.