Radionuclide Tc-99m MDP imaging for diagnosis of bone tumour at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (Ghana) – An Illustrative Review

Radioisotopes are used in diagnosing primary and metastatic bone tumours because of the high sensitivity. Diagnosing bone tumours using technetium methylene diphosphonate (Tc-99m MDP) on 9 randomly selected whole-body bone scans have been demonstrated by clinical studies of patients for illustrative review. Upon sati-sfactory testing of the e.cam® Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography at the Nuclear Medicine Depart-ment (Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital), scans of patients provided essential physiologic information about the sites of bone lesions and prognosis as shown by sequential changes in tracer uptake. The bone scintigrams were clas-sified either as normal or pathologic. Of the 197 patients (91 males and 106 females) who underwent radioacti-ve whole-body bone scans in the year 2006, the peak age at bone tumour detection was between 51 and 60 yea-rs. From qualitative analyses of the reported cases, 114 patients were diagnosed with bone tumours, but ~ 17 % were found to be primary, while ~ 83 % were metastatic in nature. The observation confirmed other published data that bone tumours with origin in the cells of bone are not prevalent compared to tumours that metastasize from other parts of the body, such as breast, cervix and prostate. Breast, prostate and cervical cancers contribut-ed respectively to 34 %, 19 % and 18 % of the bone tumour cases, but only 3 % were diagnosed with osteoporo-sis (a relatively rare type of bone disease)

Knowledge levels on applications of radiation in medicine among medical practitioners in Ghana

The evaluation of medical practitioners’ knowledge levels of radiation and safety is essential for planning diagnostic procedures and treatment in radiation medicine. This study sought to identify levels of knowledge and the predictor variables influencing knowledge of medical practitioners on applications of radiation in medicine in Ghana. Online survey was conducted with Google Form consisting of 37-point questionnaire highlighting on physicians’ background information, professional experience, knowledge on radiation usage in medicine, radiation protection and safety. Evaluation of the data was performed by descriptive analysis using frequency distributions and percentages. Among 152 respondents who participated in the study, specialists and consultants made up a higher representation of 46.7%. Two-thirds (64.0%) of the respondents who had received refresher training in the application of radiation in medicine exhibited full knowledge in the field. Medical practitioners who had practiced between 21–25 years were also found to demonstrate full knowledge of the application of radiation in medicine, while 36.6% of those who had practiced for < 6 years demonstrated extensive knowledge. Majority of the medical practitioners, constituting 39.5%, exhibited full knowledge in medical radiation protection and safety. This level of knowledge was found higher than what was demonstrated for general and occupational radiation protection. With medical imaging forming a key component in the diagnosis of several medical conditions, education in the field of radiation usage and radiological protection and safety should be a subject of periodic training for medical practitioners regardless of their level of training or duration of practic