[Importance of bone biopsies in the diagnosis of cancer metastases].

A 39-year-old woman was hospitalized at our Institute following a diagnosis of "suspected systemic lymphopathy". The patient exhibited mediastinal tumefaction, moderate anemia, thrombocytopenia, leucoerythroblastic streak in peripheral blood, diffuse bone pain, slight fever, cough and dyspnea. The clinical picture, radiological findings and hematochemical data apparently suggested a diagnosis of epithelial neoplasia of bronchial origin, or a primary hemopathy. Only by means of an osteomedullary biopsy was it possible to establish that the disease was actually a bronchogenic carcinoma invading the marrow. In conclusion, both for a correct staging of patients with carcinoma, and for histological diagnosis, when the primary side can not be identified or attacked, the osteomedullary biopsy, if feasible carried out at different sites, proves to be the test of choice.