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.