[Bone scintigraphy for the staging of lymphogranulomatosis?]

The importance of bone scintigraphy for the classification of stages of lymphogranulomatosis is judged differently, the indications in literature are not unanimous. The high sensitivity of this method is uncontested, but it is said to be not very reliable in the exclusion of a bone manifestation because of its low specificness. Bone scintigraphy demonstrates a disturbance in bone metabolism; in clinical examination this has to be checked by X-ray view in order to exclude not tumor-induced reasons for the increased or decreased concentration. In a prospective study we have investigated if this combined radiologic approach allows to use scintigraphy in the classification of stages. Four out of 23 patients in stage I showed a tumor-suspicious scintigram which was confirmed by X-ray examination within 1 1/2 years in two patients. One quarter of 133 patients in stage II and III had a pathologic scintigram. In 34 out of 36 patients who could be followed up, this was confirmed later on by an X-ray finding in the same site. 15 out of 36 patients in stage III with initially normal scintigram showed a conversion to a tumor-suspicious scan during the later course of the disease. The tumor-suspicious scintigraphy found at the time of classification of stages has been confirmed later on by X-ray examination in 91% of our series. So, scintigraphy may be considered to be valuable for the classification of stages. Furthermore the conformity of tumor-suspicious scintigram and bone marrow biopsy was investigated. Whereas in 62% of patients with M+ a bone manifestation could be demonstrated by scintigraphy, only 46% of patients with scintigraphic 0+ showed a histologic manifestation in bone marrow. Consequently, bone scintigraphy cannot be used to demonstrate or to exclude a manifestation in bone marrow. As the metabolism is modified by therapy in case of a demonstrated bone manifestation, scintigraphy should be a sensitive parameter in these cases, too, for an early indication of response to cytostatic treatment. The scintigram became normal in 46 patients coming to a complete remission; eight out of nine patients the scintigraphic findings of whom became worse were non-responders. Five out of twelve patients with unchanged scintigram came to a remission. A normalizing scintigram indicates a response to therapy, whereas a deterioration suggests a non-response. Bone scintigraphy can also be used to judge the success of a cytostatic therapy.