Nuclear medicine and the failed joint replacement: Past, present, and future

Figure 1 Aseptically loosened right hip arthroplasty. A: X-ray reveals medial protrusion of the acetabular component of a painful 15 year old hip replacement. There is heterotopic ossification around both greater trochanters (arrows); B: On the ^99mTc-methylene diphosphonate bone scan, there is focally increased radiopharmaceutical accumulation at the distal tip of the femoral component (arrow) of the right hip replacement and lateral to the femoral neck (arrowhead) corresponding to the heterotopic bone seen on the X-ray. An aseptically loosened prosthesis was revised. Focally increased radiopharmaceutical accumulation is present at the tip of the femoral component of the asymptomatic left hip arthroplasty (double arrows) which also was 15 years old.