Diagnostic Value of the Bone Mineral Densitometry in the Metastatic Prostatic Cancer

Park, Kwang Sung; Park, Soon Man; Bum, Hee Seung; Park, Yang Il

Abstract

The bone scan in patients with prostate cancer remains to be the most sensitive method to assess the bone metastasis. But it is nonspecific and shows similar finding in either benign or malignant disease. Bone mineral densitometry allows for the quantification of total body bone mass. So we evaluated the efficacy of the measurement of the bone mineral density with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in patients with prostate cancer who had showed hot spot on the bone scan. Of the 15 patients 7 cases( 47% ) showed increased bone mineral density. To evaluate the efficacy of bone mineral densitometry, we analyze the 11 patients whose bone scan show hot spot on lumbar spine. Among them 2 cases( 18%) show osteoblastic finding on the bone x-ray, but 5 cases(45%) show increased density and 2 cases show decreased density on the bone mineral densitometry. These results show that the bone mineral densitometry is more valuable than bone x-ray in the detection of abnormal bone density. Therefore we suggest that bone mineral densitometry can be used as a helpful method of bone scan to detect the metastatic bone lesion in the advanced prostatic cancer.