Stage I-II melanoma: the value of metastatic work-up.
A total of 116 asymptomatic patients with malignant skin melanoma entered a multiple staging work-up including chest X-ray, multiple nuclear scans and abdominal ultrasonography. All 116 chest X-rays and 68 brain scans performed gave negative findings. Liver scans resulted in 1/66 false-positive findings. Out of 73 bone scans, 5 gave false-positive results. Only 2 out of 66 abdominal ultrasonographies showed abnormal findings and were found to be true-positive on surgical exploration. Due to the low yield in detecting silent metastases, such a multiple staging work-up would not be regarded as a routine staging program.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000556:secondary; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D008722:Methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology