SPECT & bone scan
SPECT and the bone scan are an older type of nuclear scan, still used for bone metastases and to check where a radioactive drug went after treatment.
Overview
SPECT uses gamma cameras to detect single photons from isotopes such as 99mTc, 111In and 177Lu, rotating around the patient to reconstruct a 3D distribution. The 99mTc-MDP bone scan is its most familiar oncology use, detecting skeletal metastases through increased bone turnover, although PSMA PET is displacing it in prostate cancer. Its growing role is in theranostics: SPECT/CT after 177Lu therapy shows where the radioligand went and enables post-treatment dosimetry, a key enabler of personalised radioligand dosing. It is cheap and widespread, but its resolution and sensitivity are lower than PET, and standardising dosimetry protocols across centres remains work in progress. SPECT is the older nuclear scan still used for bone metastases and for checking where a radioactive drug ended up.
- Gamma camera (rotates)
- Single photons (Tc-99m, Lu-177)
How it works
Gamma cameras detect single photons from 99mTc, 111In, 177Lu; rotating acquisition reconstructs 3D distribution.
- Cheap, widespread
- Dosimetry for radioligand therapy
- Lower resolution and sensitivity than PET
Dependencies
Open the dependency map →Dependencies are what this technology cannot be delivered without: manufacturing steps, instruments, software, upstream methods. See its full chain on the map.
One of the oldest cancer-imaging scans still on the market: an injectable form of radioactive gallium that collects in lymphomas and some other tumours (and in infections), imaged one to five days later. It has mostly been replaced by FDG-PET but is still FDA-approved and occasionally used.
The original nuclear medicine scan for finding neuroendocrine tumours, used before PET scans like Ga-68 DOTATATE became available. It is still FDA-approved but has largely been superseded because PET gives sharper pictures with less radiation.
An injectable tracer that mimics a stress hormone and gets taken up by certain nerve-related tumours, such as pheochromocytoma and childhood neuroblastoma, so a scan afterwards can show where they are.
A puff of radioactive carbon particles so fine they travel with the breath into the depths of the lung, where they stick. A gamma camera then photographs which parts of the lung are getting air, which is compared with a second scan showing which parts are getting blood.
A Chinese-invented injection that makes tumours visible on the cheap, widely available type of scanner (SPECT) rather than the expensive one (PET). It was approved in China in April 2026 to check whether lung cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.
The standard, decades-old bone scan: a radioactive tracer that sticks to areas of bone rebuilding, so a gamma-camera picture afterwards shows where cancer may have spread to bone, or where a fracture or infection is healing.
A version of the PSMA prostate cancer scan that uses the same cheap, widely available radioactive tag as a standard bone scan instead of the PET tracers. Surgeons can also carry a small radiation detector into the operating room to help find and remove cancerous lymph nodes. It has not been through formal drug approval; it is used as an academic, in-house preparation.
A cold-kit radioactive tracer that maps blood flow inside the brain on a SPECT scan, used mainly to look for the effects of stroke and, off-label in practice, to help support a diagnosis of brain death.
The purpose-built tracer for sentinel lymph node mapping in breast cancer, melanoma and oral cancer, replacing off-label sulfur colloid.
Latest papers
topQuery for this technology: (TITLE:"SPECT/CT" OR ABSTRACT:"SPECT/CT" OR TITLE:"bone scan" OR ABSTRACT:"bone scan" OR TITLE:"dosimetry SPECT" OR ABSTRACT:"dosimetry SPECT") AND (radiopharmaceutical OR radioligand OR radionuclide OR theranostic OR "nuclear medicine" OR "molecular imaging" OR radiotracer OR scintigraphy OR cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about SPECT & bone scan, not a curated reading list.
Similar pages
not linked directly; found by shared links- CompanyCurium
Shares Gallium citrate Ga-67, Technetium Tc-99m medronate (MDP), Indium-111 pentetreotide, Radionuclide generators and cold kits.
- CompanyBWXT Medical
Shares Indium-111, Radioembolisation (TARE / SIRT, yttrium-90), Iodine-123, Molybdenum-99.
- AgentTechnetium Tc-99m albumin aggregated (MAA)
Shares Krypton-81m, Technegas (technetium Tc-99m labelled carbon inhalation aerosol), Pulmonary embolism: ventilation/perfusion imaging, Radioembolisation (TARE / SIRT, yttrium-90).
- TechnologyPET/CT
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- TechnologyCT (computed tomography)
Shares CT, MRI and PET scanner manufacturing, Siemens Healthineers, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, GE HealthCare.
- TechnologyCyclotron isotope production (F-18, Ga-68, Cu-64, Zr-89, At-211)
Shares Gallium-67, Thallium-201, Siemens Healthineers, Indium-111.
- RoadmapDosimetry roadmap: MIRD schema → fixed dosing → personalised, image-based dose
Shares Dosimetry-personalised PRRT instead of four fixed cycles, Total-body PET for personalised radioligand dosing, SPECT/CT, Dosimetry.
- IndicationNeuroendocrine tumours
Shares Gallium-67, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Indium-111 pentetreotide, Dosimetry-personalised PRRT instead of four fixed cycles.
indications
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2Open tools
All open tools by front →Open-source software, hardware and data projects catalogued by a third party, the Open Medical Registry, that bear on this technology. Listing is not endorsement; check each project's own licence and validation before clinical use.
- calculate-suvMITsoftware
Tiny library for calculating Standardized Uptake Value for Nuclear Medicine (i.e.
- GateLGPL-3.0software
Official public repository of Gate
From the Open Medical Registry (openmedical.sh), an MIT-licensed catalogue of open-source medicine. Blurbs are one line from each registry record; every project keeps its own licence.