[Splenic focal lesion in oncologic patients diagnosed by ultrasound]

Focal lesion of the spleen are infrequent, they appear in 2-4% of patients with malignancies, in our experience we found metastases in nineteen oncologic patients (0.54%) this fact modified the staging prognosis and therapeutic. All the cases were correlated with laparoscopy, fine needle biopsy guided by ultrasound, and or laparotomy. It is emphasized tha the spleen's size was normal in 47.4%. The usual appearance was multiple focal lesions in 89.5% and the sonography pattern of the lesion was variable: Hypoechoic in 63.2% hyperechoic an mixed in 15.8% respectively and cystic in 5.3%. We conclude that ultrasound is an excellent non invasive method to detect focal lesions of the spleen in oncologic patient, where is necessary to know the histology of this lesions, fine needle guided biopsies, can be done safely.