[Lymphography--farewell to a routine method in pretherapeutic staging?]

In view of the steep decline in the number of lymphangiographies (LAG) performed, the authors try to correlate the relevance of this radiological staging method with that of computed tomography and the histological results of lymphadenectomy. The diagnostic accuracy of both methods (LAG and CT) is comparable (71.4% and 70.6%, respectively). In respect of specificity, CT is superior to LAG (this superiority is due to the method employed) to the tune of 88.2% for CT vs. 58.8% for LAG. If there is a large proportion of early tumour stages, CT is inferior to LAG with regard to sensitivity (52.6% and 63.2%, respectively). Lymphangiography can no longer be recommended in case of intrapelvic urological and gynaecological tumours. It is only indicated, as before, in staging diagnosis of seminomas of stage No of after CT and of Hodgkin's lymphomas of stage II B. In non-seminomas LAG is exclusively a service performed for the benefit of the surgeon wishing to have a contrast medium staining of the lymph nodes. In future, LAG can be offered only in centres having a sufficiently large group of oncological patients to look after.