Liver scanning in cancer patients with short-interval autopsy correlation.

The correlation between radionuclide liver scan interpretation and autopsy findings in 94 patients is presented. All patients had a known primary malignancy and the postmortem examinations were performed within 28 days of the scan. In 81% of the cases, the scans were correctly interpreted. There was a 15% rate of false-positive readings and a 21% rate of false-negative interpretations. Metastatic deposits less than 2 cm in diameter were the most frequent source of false-negative scans.