spot on rib.

anamerty · January 2013

update from my oncologist, some of you know from my posts that while been hospitalized Dec4-18 for interstial pneumonia, due to reaction totaxotere they did many tests while I was there.My doctor has ordered my first bone scan for Feb 8th, as a "spot" showed up on my 3rd rib right side(this is about where my cancer was).My first ct scan was Dec 7 ,they were really looking at the progression of the double pneumonia but noticed a small spot on rib,I had quite a few chest xrays all during the 2 weeks in hospital,looking at my pneumonia, and there was no spot on any of the xrays.After release from hospital I went back due to pain shortness of breath etc, that was Dec 24 they did another chest xray and ct with the dye and didn't find any blod clots.So now Ive found out that on both ct scans drs could see this spot but the one done on the 24th has now shrunk and there is scar tissue or healing around that.My mo is totally stumped because he said that I was not given any chemo between the 7th and the 24th and can't figure why this would get smaller.He was talking biopsies etc after getting the bone scan,yadda yadda so he was talking as if it was mets to bones, so I asked him if he thought it was he said the ct scanner(tec) and himself believe its cancer, but can't figure out why it is now smaller, and didn't show in all the xrays,Has anybody had this happen? What does this mean for me?

Alicethecat · January 2013

Hi Ana

I'm sorry you're going through this.

A similar thing happened to me. A spot appeared on a rib - a T4 rib - on a bone scan. My onc ordered a CT scan. Clear.

The bone scan was repeated six months later. Clear. The spot was just natural bone repair!

I am hoping that yours is similar to mine.

With best wishes

Alice

anamerty · January 2013

gee thanks for your story. I hope I can hear more of these stories. Funny though mine was picked up in the ct scan, now they want bone scan,how is that that you had bone scan then ct scan to check it?

Alicethecat · January 2013

Hi Ana

I have no idea why the first onc I saw asked me to have a bone scan from the get go as I had clean margins and no spread to the bones or blood.

As it was, I was on tenterhooks for six months waiting for the repeat scan. Not a nice time.

Interested re your experience re shortness of breath. I had that too and was diagnosed with small pulmonary emboli - tiny blood clots in the lung.

I called a doc out one night because I felt very nervous and felt short of breath. He took took blood and sent it off to the lab for a D-Diemer test

http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/d-dimer/tab/test

Not mets.

I empathise with what you are going for and am hoping for the best for you!

Best wishes

Alice

misty100 · April 2013

Hi, I too had a spot on the 3rd rib which was found via a whole body MRI. They wanted to do a biopsy but said it was not viable due to the position of it, so they did a much more detailed MRI and came to the conclusion that it was nothing to worry about. Had an MRI a year later and there were no changes. My bc nurse says it is common for things to be picked up on scans that turn out to be nothing serious - such as little injuries or benign lesions. It's always scary when they're ordering more scans but they just want to rule out a serious problem, and it's a good thing that they do. I was freaked out about the rib spot because my back pain went away on chemo. Turns out it was just the anti inflammatory effect of the drugs. Good luck and don't assume the worst!

spot on rib.

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