Bone Scintigraphy in Staging of Bladder Carcinoma

Abstract

The role of bone scintigraphy in the staging of bladder carcinoma before attempted radical therapy was evaluated from a personal series of 71 consecutive cases. The results from this were correlated to previous reports—accumulated data from a total of 458 staging bone scans were thus obtained. In this accumulated material metastases were diagnosed in 4.6 per cent—in 2.8 per cent true positive and in 1.7 per cent false positive findings. The effect of the bone scanning results on therapy was minimal: cystectomy was performed in spite of the diagnosis of metastases in 16 out of 21 patients. In only 4 patients (0.9%) surgery was avoided because of scintigraphy results. Scintigraphy thus has no place in the routine preoperative staging of bladder carcinoma.