99mTc-Ethambutol Scan with SPECT/CT in Knee Joint Tuberculosis

Simran Kalra; Nishikant Avinash Damle; Piyush Ranjan; Sunit Sikdar; Geetanjali Arora; Ankur Goyal; Deepak Gautam

doi:10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_16_22

^99mTc-Ethambutol Scan with SPECT/CT in Knee Joint Tuberculosis

Indian J Nucl Med. 2022 Jul-Sep;37(3):295-296. doi: 10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_16_22. Epub 2022 Nov 2.

Authors

Simran Kalra¹, Nishikant Avinash Damle¹, Piyush Ranjan², Sunit Sikdar², Geetanjali Arora¹, Ankur Goyal³, Deepak Gautam⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET-CT, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
² Department of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
³ Department of Radiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
⁴ Department of Orthopedics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.

Abstract

Modalities for in vivo imaging of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are limited and inadequately studied. One such modality is ^99mTc-ethambutol scintigraphy which has shown promising results for diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB). Ethambutol, one of the primary antitubercular drugs, is bacteriostatic which acts on the mycolic acid cell wall synthesis of the M. tuberculosis. However, literature on its utility is scarce. The few studies that exist have reported its sensitivity and specificity between 90%- 95% and 71%-85%. We present here a case demonstrating the role of ^99mTc-ethambutol scan in knee joint TB.

Keywords: 99mTc-Ethambutol; knee joint; tuberculosis.