Application of bone scans for prostate cancer staging: Which guideline shows better result?

We evaluated the accuracy of current guidelines by analyzing bone scan results and clinical parameters of patients with prostate cancer to determine the optimal guideline for predicting bone metastasis.

We retrospectively analyzed patients who were diagnosed with prostate cancer and who underwent a bone scan. Bone metastasis was confirmed by bone scan results with clinical and radiological follow-up. Serum prostate-specific antigen, Gleason score, percent of positive biopsy core, clinical staging and bone scan results were analyzed. We analyzed diagnostic performance in predicting bone metastasis of the guidelines of the European Association of Urology (EAU), American Urological Association (AUA), and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines as well as Briganti's classification and regression tree (CART). We also compared the percent of positive biopsy core between patients with and without bone metastases.

A total 167 of 806 patients had bone metastases. Receiver operating curve analysis revealed that the AUA and EAU guidelines were better for detecting bone metastases than were Briganti's CART and NCCN. No significant difference was observed between AUA and EAU guidelines. Patients with bone metastases had a higher percent positive core than did patients without metastasis (the cut-off value >55.6).

The EAU and AUA guidelines showed better results than did Briganti's CART and NCCN for predicting bone metastasis in the enrolled patients. A bone scan is strongly recommended for patients who have a higher percent positive core and who meet the EAU and AUA guidelines.