Confused and concerned - new member

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AJK2264
AJK2264 Member Posts: 3
edited April 2016 in Not Diagnosed With a Recurrence or Metastases but Concerned

I am new to the boards and I'm hoping to get some information. I had double mastectomy for DCIS in 2010. No follow up treatment was necessary - I was good to go. Recently had check up and (new) doctor ordered chest x-ray. Lungs were clear, but they saw what they thought was a summation of tissue or shadow on vertebra at the T7 or T8 level. This led to another (thoracic) x-ray which revealed "T8 vertebral body sclerotic lesion. Given the patient's known breast
cancer history, this is concerning for osseous metastatic disease. Would recommend further evaluation with thoracic spine MRI and bone scintigraphy." Had the MRI done - results " Large geographic region of decreased T2 and T1 signal body of T8. No evidence of enhancement on the post contrast portion of the study. No associated soft tissue masses. Appearance is nonspecific. Given the history, a bony metastasis cannot be excluded. Would recommend further evaluation with bone scan."

When I called to set up the bone scan, radiology switched it to PET scan. Trying to find out from the Dr. why this is but I'm putting it out there to you all to get any feedback, information, reassurance, whatever. This has been a roller coaster for the past month and I'm a nervous wreck.

By the way - I have zero symptoms.

Thanks and sorry for the lengthy post.


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  • KBeee
    KBeee Member Posts: 5,109
    edited March 2016

    I believe a PET scan is a bit more sensitive than a bone scan. It is good that there was no enhancement. They can't "exclude" metastasis since they don't know 100% what it is, but if it were very suspicious, it would likely say "suspicious for or highly suspicious for metastatic disease. It sounds like they are trying to cover all bases which is good, but it sounds like it is not highly suspicious and they are just wanting to be 100% sure. That's my unscientific analysis anyway. Sorry you are dealing with all of the tests. Imaging has benefits, but this is one of the drawbacks of scanning and imaging...finding benign incidentalomas. Hopefully this is what yours ends up being. Keep us posted.

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  • SpecialK
    SpecialK Member Posts: 16,486
    edited March 2016

    Generally, bone scans can continue to show bone lesions, and/or false positives without further delineating malignancy, whereas, PET may be more definitive because of the FDG avid uptake usually shown by a metastasis. I have had PET done for staging due to node positive breast cancer, both pre-chemo and post-chemo, and also have numerous degenerative disk issues in the lumbar and thoracic bone spurs. PET was able to show that these areas were ortho in nature and not metastatic because of the lack of uptake of the tracer. I suspect that your imaging was changed to PET to provide better info than the bone scan would give since you have already had some imaging modalities that have not provided enough info. Good luck!

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  • AJK2264
    AJK2264 Member Posts: 3
    edited March 2016

    Thank you for your comments and concern. Trying to remain positive. I may post on the DCIS board as well just to get the most feedback I can.

    Thank you!

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  • SteffB
    SteffB Member Posts: 1
    edited April 2016

    AJK2264....were you able to get some answers from your further testing? I too had DCIS and a mastectomy and am now worried about some lung issues. I was just wondering how you were doing and whether you were able to get some answers about a possible metastasis. I hope you are well.

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