Follow up Question to Dr. West after recent bone scan - 1260313

alta
Posts:15

The most recent Bone scan shows the following

"Stable bone scan with persisting focus of relative increase in tracer uptake at the site of known osseous disease involving the L3 lumbar spine. No new abnormalities to suggest osseous disease elsewhere"

My previous question was as follows and Dr. West was kind enough to give me an explanation and hope.

My daughter has stage 3a breast cancer. Back in January when she was first diagnosed her bone scan and MRI showed “moderate focal uptake in L3 corresponding to lytic lesion” . She had a FNB and core of that area and was found negative. She has had 3 different PET/CT scans and they all show “photopenic in the L3″ with the last one stating “photopenic area of L3 unchanged” Her last bone scan says the same thing as the initial one back in january “moderate focal uptake in L3 corresponding to lytic lesion. Her oncologist is just scanning the area for now. She also has moderate uptake at T12 which has not changed since the initial scan.

Can you tell me what this means? What are the chances that she is stage 4?

I don’t know if it makes any difference that she has rheumatoid arthritis.

Thank you

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Reply # - November 5, 2013, 08:01 PM

JimC
Posts: 2753

alta,

The unchanged bone scan really doesn't offer much new information either way regarding whether this is Stage IV cancer. In the absence of scan evidence of progressing areas of osseous (or other) disease (which would suggest metastases) or of positive biopsy results, there's no way to be certain. On the other hand, continued stable findings may suggest that what is seen on the scan does not indicate cancer, since cancer normally grows over time.

JImC
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Reply # - November 6, 2013, 08:33 AM

alta
Posts: 15

Thank you so much for your replies. I think her oncologist is starting to feel this is not cancer as he mentions that another biopsy would probably be of no use.

I hope I can get an answer to this though. Yesterday I got a copy of an xray report from 2007 for a minor accident she had. It mentions that she had bone spurs thoughout her vertebrates and artifacts on oblque views. Would this be relevant to whats going on now with the scans?

Thanks.

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