BONE-MARROW IMMUNOSCINTIGRAPHY COMPARED WITH CONVENTIONAL BONE-SCINTIGRAPHY FOR THE DETECTION OF BONE METASTASES

Immunoscintigraphy of haematopoetic bone marrow was compared to conven tional bone scanning in 141 patients with malignant disease. Forty pat ients had breast cancer, 25 prostatic carcinoma, 14 kidney or bladder cancer, 13 bronchial carcinoma, 39 malignant lymphoma and 10 multiple myeloma. A total of 18 800 skeletal regions were evaluated. Marrow sca ns showed more metastatic lesions than bone scanning in all patient su bgroups. Computerized tomography was concordant with bone marrow scint igraphy in 83.3% of 323 skeletal sites. Bone marrow scans in 30 contro l patients with fever of unknown origin were abnormal only in 3 patien ts and in only 7 out of 2 135 skeletal regions examined. In patients w ith malignant lymphoma, bone marrow histology or aspiration cytology w as concordantly positive in 14,and concordantly negative in 17 patient s. We conclude that immunoscintigraphy of haematopoetic bone marrow-pr ovides a reliable, sensitive and safe novel approach for non-invasive detection of metastatic spread to the skeleton.