[Is it possible to do without bone gammagraphy in the staging of prostatic cancer?]

Since the discovery of the prostate specific antigen, and its use as tumoral marker, not only this has been shown to have a significant application for the diagnosis and evaluation of prostate cancer management, but also to be an eventual help to predict occurrence of bone metastasis. A retrospective study was conducted in 50 patient with prostate cancer, with mean age of 74 years (range 56-90), where PSA levels were analyzed and then correlated with the results obtained with bone scintigraphy. Our work results were that, given a 40% prevalence of the metastatic disease, no patient had PSA values under 10 ng/ml and, at the same time, bone dissemination, i.e., a 100% negative predictive value. Thus, we can state that in our group, we could have given a PSA cut-off value over 10 ng/ml to perform bone scintigraphy, without making any staging mistake.