Bladder cancer: the value of routine bone scintigraphy.

Two hundred and twenty-one patients with invasive bladder cancer had routine bone scintigraphy performed as part of tumour staging. The incidence of detectable metastases was 12%. Skeletal scintigraphy at diagnosis has a sensitivity of only 38%. The predictive value of a negative examination was 92%. These results suggest that skeletal scintigraphy is not indicated as a routine staging procedure in carcinoma of the bladder.