title: Bone marrow scintigraphy in prostatic carcinomas.
abstract: Bone marrow scintigrams (MS) were performed on 73 men with histologically proven prostatic carcinomas. Follow-up data were available in 24 cases. Thirty-six patients had skeletal metastases at the time of the first MS investigation. They were compared with conventional bone scintigrams (BS) as well as clinical, biological, radiological and other follow-up data obtained for the same patients. At the present stage of revision and of follow-up of our patients, MS appeared less sensitive than BS in diagnosing skeletal metastases (94% as against 100% if all abnormal MS and BS presentations are considered as diagnostic or 83% as against 86% if more restrictive analytic criteria were applied). On the other hand, MS showed slightly higher specificity (81% for MS as against 73% for BS) when all abnormal MS and BS presentations are considered as diagnostic. With more restrictive diagnostic criteria, BS remains more specific (100%) than MS (87%). Nevertheless, the likelihood of bone metastasis is low when a normal MS is found in case of dubious BS situations, but high when the MS is pathological. In 11 patients with skeletal metastasis for whom follow-up investigations were available, MS appeared better than (4 cases) or equivalent to (6 cases) BS for evaluating the responses and the ultimate evolution of the disease. Marrow scintigrams are thus a useful tool in cases of dubious BS and for evaluating the response of skeletal metastasis to treatment.
authors.affiliation: C.H.J. Bracops, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bourgeois
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Malarme
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Van Franck
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wauters
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ferremans
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000556:secondary*; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013668:Technetium Tc 99m Aggregated Albumin; D013669:Technetium Tc 99m Medronate; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D013668:Technetium Tc 99m Aggregated Albumin; D013669:Technetium Tc 99m Medronate