Routine Preoperative Bone Scintigraphy Has Limited Impact on the Management of Patients with Invasive Bladder Cancer.

Furrer, Marc A.; Grueter, Thomas; Bosshard, Piet; Vartolomei, Mihai Dorin; Kiss, Bernhard; Thalmann, George N.; Roth, Beat (2021). Routine Preoperative Bone Scintigraphy Has Limited Impact on the Management of Patients with Invasive Bladder Cancer. European urology focus, 7(5), pp. 1052-1060. Elsevier 10.1016/j.euf.2020.09.016

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BACKGROUND

According to current guidelines, bone scintigraphy is not routinely indicated in patients with invasive bladder cancer prior to radical cystectomy unless specific symptoms are present. These guidelines, however, are based on sparse data of low quality.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the clinical impact of routine staging bone scintigraphy on further patient management.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

A retrospective, single-center study of 1287 consecutive patients, who were scheduled to undergo radical cystectomy due to invasive bladder cancer between January 2000 and December 2017, was conducted. All patients were prospectively followed up according to our institutional protocol.

INTERVENTION

Bone scintigraphy as staging imaging prior to radical cystectomy.

OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

The primary endpoint was the change in intended patient management. Secondary endpoints were the need for additional imaging, the diagnostic performance of baseline bone scintigraphy, and the association between clinical and radiological findings on bone metastases and survival. Logistic and Cox regression models were used for univariate and multivariate analyses.

RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS

Of 1287 patients scheduled for radical cystectomy, 1148 (89%) underwent bone scintigraphy as staging imaging. Overall, baseline bone scintigraphy led to a change in the intended management in 19/1148 (1.7%) patients. Additional imaging was performed in 44/1148 (4%) patients. Although positive bone scintigraphy findings were associated with the occurrence/development of bone metastases, the diagnostic performance of baseline bone scintigraphy was generally poor (positive predictive value, negative predictive value, sensitivity, and specificity were 56%, 89%, 27%, and 96%, respectively). Higher clinical tumor stage and the nonperformance of cystectomy had negative impacts on cancer-specific survival and overall survival, while positive bone scintigraphy was associated with worse cancer-specific survival. This study was limited by its retrospective nature and the lack of follow-up bone scintigraphy in all patients.

CONCLUSIONS

These results demonstrate the limited value of bone scintigraphy in the staging of invasive bladder cancer and do not support its routine use.

PATIENT SUMMARY

In this study, we looked at the clinical impact of bone scintigraphy on the diagnostics of patients with invasive bladder cancer. We found that routine staging bone scintigraphy had limited impact on further patient management. We conclude that bone scintigraphy should not be part of routine staging in patients with invasive bladder cancer.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Dermatology, Urology, Rheumatology, Nephrology, Osteoporosis (DURN) > Clinic of Urology

UniBE Contributor:

Furrer, Marc, Bosshard, Piet, Kiss, Bernhard, Thalmann, George, Roth, Beat

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

2405-4569

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Jeannine Wiemann

Date Deposited:

08 Dec 2020 14:17

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:42

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.euf.2020.09.016

PubMed ID:

33060038

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Bladder cancer Bone metastases Bone scan Imaging Patient management Scintigraphy

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.148451

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/148451

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