Assessment of the viability of microvascularized bone grafts after mandibular reconstruction by means of bone SPET and semiquantitative analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the value of bone scintigraphy including single-photon emission tomography (SPET) and semiquantitative analysis for the assessment of graft viability following microvascularized bone transplantation. We evaluated 60 scintigraphic studies of 36 patients with 39 bone grafts. Thirty-four investigations were performed 6-11 days (early bone scans) and 26 up to 11 months (late bone scans) after mandibular reconstruction. After administration of 550 MBq technetium-99m methylene diphosphonate, planar scintigrams and a SPET study were performed. The data were reconstructed iteratively. Scans were evaluated visually and semiquantitatively by a region of interest technique using the ratio between transplant and cranium (T/C). Patients with uncomplicated healing showed a T/C ratio >1.0 in early and late bone scans. In cases with necrosis, the T/C ratio was below 1.0 when performing early bone scans. However, in late bone scans, some patients with necrosis showed a slightly increased uptake and a T/C ratio >1.0. The data demonstrate that as early as 6-11 days after mandibular reconstruction, increased tracer uptake proves that the surgery has been successful and indicates a normal healing process. Especially in the early bone scans no false-positive or false-negative results were observed and the T/C ratio clearly differentiated between vital and non-vital bone grafts. At later times false-positive findings could be observed; these were, however, rare because of the significantly higher tracer uptake of the healthy grafts when compared with completely or partially necrotic transplants.