Screening bone scintigraphy in the staging of locally advanced head and neck cancer.

A retrospective determination of the yield from screening bone scintigraphy in detecting bone metastasis when used for disease staging of 93 asymptomatic patients with locally extensive head and neck cancer was undertaken. The bone scintigraphy findings were correlated with observations from other radioimaging studies done within 1 month of head and neck cancer diagnosis. Bone scintigraphy did not reveal a single case of bone metastasis outside the head and neck region. On the other hand, 3 cases (8%) of resectable and 2 cases (5%) of non-resectable bone metastasis located within the head and neck area were observed among the 40 patients with abnormal bone scintigraphy. Old rib fracture or degenerative disease was responsible for the increased radionuclide uptake in bony areas below the clavicle in less than half of the remaining 35 cases. We conclude that the routine use of bone scintigraphy for disease staging in asymptomatic patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer is not warranted because the positive yield is low.