[Pretherapeutic metastases diagnosis in bronchial cancer with special reference to nuclear medicine procedures]

In a retrospective study of 280 patients with histologically verified bronchogenic carcinoma, pretherapeutic diagnosis using scanning procedures yielded 13.6% skeletal metastases, 8.6% liver metastases and 3.6% brain metastases. The total 23.9% of hematogenous metastases proved to be dependent on the histological type of tumor: it was highest in small cell anaplastic carcinomas (38.8%) and large cell carcinomas (32.5%), and lowest in epidermoid carcinomas (13.3%). If the localization of metastases was also taken into account, the highest rates of metastases in the skeleton (17.5% and 22.5%) the liver (15%) and the brain (7.5%) were always found with small cell anaplastic and large cell carcinomas. Besides the histopathological type of tumor, the frequency of metastases depended also on the local stage of bronchial cancer. While scanning of the skeleton and the liver for clinical staging of bronchogenic carcinoma should always be regarded as an essential part of primary diagnosis (alternatively ultrasonography and computed tomography of liver) the necessity for brain scan and/or computed tomography depends on the neurological findings and the histomorphological type of tumor.