Radiographic evaluation for pulmonary metastases in sarcoma patients

The records of 130 patients with soft tissue and bone sarcomas were retrospectively analyzed to identify the subgroups of patients that would benefit from tomographic studies for pulmonary metastasis. Sixty-six of 96 patients with a normal conventional chest roentgenogram (CXR) had tomography to diagnose pulmonary metastasis. Of the 53 patients who had primary disease and a normal CXR followed by tomography, only 1 (1.9%) had metastases identified on tomograms. Of the 13 patients who had locally recurrent sarcoma and a CXR plus tomographic studies, 2 (15%) had metastases detected on tomogram only. Tomographic studies detected significantly more sarcoma patients with pulmonary metastasis in the group with locally recurrent disease than in the group with primary disease (P less than 0.05).