Whole-body imaging for distant staging of bone chondrosarcoma: a systematic review.

PURPOSE

Despite the heterogeneity and peculiarities of bone chondrosarcoma (CS), specific guidelines regarding its distant staging are missing. We gathered the available evidence about imaging for distant staging in bone CS to foster guidelines' renewal.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We searched PubMed/MEDLINE and Embase for recent publications about imaging-based staging of chondrogenic tumors. The included studies had to encompass bone CS and to utilize whole-body imaging protocols. Narrative reviews, case reports, surveys, and studies either not involving chondrogenic tumors, not concerning imaging, or limited to loco-regional imaging were excluded. Tumor subtype-based restrictions were not applied. Data on extraskeletal CS were neglected.

RESULTS

We initially included 27 studies of which 11 reported results specific to bone CS. While two of these specifically investigated whole-body MRI (wbMRI) in systemic chondromatoses, most studies reporting data on sporadic CS utilized either BS ± chest CT or PET-CT, followed by wbMRI. The marked heterogeneity of the studies and the scarcity of quantitative data prevented meta-analysis of the results.

CONCLUSION

Comparative evidence on whole-body imaging for distant staging of bone CS is extremely scarce. Nonetheless, wbMRI might be a convenient one-stop-shop imaging solution in bone CS, warranting further observational research.