A software tool based on quantitative methods for the analysis of bone gammagrams

Abstract

Objectives:We introduce a software tool to optimize the visualization of bone gammagrams, with the aim of differentiating (substantially) the pathologies from the radiotracer accumulation. The main objective of the mentioned software tool is to determine the presence of early-stage metastatic disease. The software contains routines capable of finding other types of anomalies and bone pathologies. Materials and methods: We analyzed a sample of 43 whole-body bone gammagrams, diagnosed with prostate cancer with ages ranging from 23 to 87 years (with a mean age of 55 years). We use several quantitative methods, such as histograms analysis, to analyze the gammagrams in gray tones. Results: Our proposed software is friendly, practical, and based on methods statistically robust, suitable for critical cases. We obtained optimal results in the search of degenerative changes, infections, or malign bone anomalies. Conclusions: The gray tone values in a bone gammagram depend on the bone health, with low order gray tones (around 20) corresponding to a healthy bone whereas values larger than 50 indicate the presence of bone disease. The gray tones distribution (besides their location) in the bone system is considered by the software for determining the bone disease type in the analyzed image.