Most accurate test to find bone mets?

undecided8

Hello,

I'm SO confused. I fell and broke my hip last September. I did all my therapy. did everything I was supposed to do without improvement of gait or pain. I just switched orthos because I felt like my original one wasn't doing enough to help me. She never even ordered an MRI. Long story short, I had an Arthogram and MRI last Friday. The Oncologist called me last night to tell me something showed up "suspicious". He cannot be sure what it is until further testing is done. This is the problem, he acts like he's not sure what to order? Very unlke him. He said a PET and Bone scan may be thrown off because of the injury itself. He said he only wanted to use a biopsy as a last resort. So he will call me this morning after he's had time to think about it and let me know. I F/U with my Ortho that ordered the test tomorrow so I'm curious what his take on it is. Can anyone tell me what is the BEST test to order to get the most accurate results after there's already been a fracture? I'm SO confused! Thanks!

cancersuks

Hi, I don't know what is the best test to detect bone mets but my spine mets were discovered along with a spine fracture through a CT-Scan.  The ER doc. said they even saw it on the chest x-ray which was done before the CT-scan.  A biopsy confirmed what was on the film...

GoldenEyes

cancersuks

How did they do the biopsy? did you have a bone biopsy on your spine? How badwas it...?  How would they do biopsy on a neck which showed a lesion?

TriciaK

I can only tell you my history of the past few months. I had a suspicious area show on bone scan, x ray fine and mri inconclusive,.  I then had a  negative pet/ct and as the spot was too small to biopsy I waited two  months and repeated the mri and got to the all clear today:)

My onc was most persueded by the pet/cy being neg and the mri today showing nothing sinister.

Not sure what the best scan is but I've waited four months for this result and it seems to me she was most impressed by the neg pet/ct.

Good luck!

Tricia

cancersuks

Hi Goldeneyes,

I had a procedure on my back to stablize the fractured vertebrae, while I was sedated they

also did the biopsy.  From what I saw on the film, there was cancer on the fractured vertebrae and both vertebraes above and below that one had what appeared to be a mass of tumours on it. 

I don't know if they biopsied the fracture or took a culture from what was around it.  I was

sedated for the procedure and did not feel any discomfort until a few days later.  They gave

me a dvd on the procedure beforehand but I did not look at it.  

Cathy-CA

Only a biopsy is definitive.  When I started having pelvic pain, the MRI said definitely mets, the PET/CT said more likely a stress fracture; and the CT-only was normal.  Ended up having a biopsy of the bone and it was mets.  But, needed the info from the biopsy for treatment because the hormone and Her2 status can change with recurrence (which it did in my case).