bone scan

bmpntherd

Hello ladies! I just had my third bone scan. Had significant increase in mets at the last scan 3 months ago which was felt to be healing. This scan is stable without further metastasis. ? with oligometastaic bone disease will the bone scan ever be improved or is stable the best news I’ll get?

ParakeetsRule

Some people get improved bone scans. You can check out the thread called Bone Mets, and maybe ask your question there: https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/8/topics/789492

illimae

Lesions may improve but you’ll often see stable as the term used with bones or NEAD for significant healing. My understanding is that bone lesions, even inactive ones are generally always visible, so NED is unlikely to be used since the “evidence” of disease remains. The good news is that stable is great, at least I think it is. “Nothing new” is one of my favorite things to hear, anywhere that cancer is sleeping or lazy is fine my me.

I’m oligo too and my bone met was mostly stable for years, it only healed completely after radiation received as part of a trial.

cowgal

I agree with illimae. I did 12 weeks of Taxol after recurrence at stage 4 from a stage 2B. My bone tumor only shrank very minimally after chemo and I did radiation to the tumor and I am currently NEAD but I notice on the scans the tumor still gets mentioned in the scans as "stable" sometimes. Sometimes it is mentioned that it looks like the bone is continuing to heal.

Parakeets put a good link that will take you to the bone met thread that I think you will find helpful.

exbrnxgrl

My bone met has been inactive for ten years, following initial treatment. It is still visible on scans like an artifact or scar. My mo has always used the term NED or NEAD because like a scar, it will always be visible so the term can certainly be used for bone mets.