need help and confused with pet scan

Pari, I am not an expert in interpreting this, but I think the answer is that this does not necessarily mean a metastasis. Your mom certainly needs more information from her doctor. In the meantime, maybe it will help you to know that muscle spasm, injury, or activity before the scan can cause increased metabolic activity that will show on the PET scan (link below for a journal article describing this). Take a deep breath. Sending you a hug.

http://tech.snmjournals.org/content/34/1/29.full

pari143 I am so with you in the waiting and the testing. I too am waiting for results. I've been through several MRI's where they found something but the 2 radiologist in separate offices say different things. I had my PET scan on Wednesday and am supposed to find out something on Monday. I did call my Dr and know that I won't have to have a bone biopsy but that is all I know after several months (been going on since end of July) and several tests (X-rays, 4 total MRI's, NUC PET/CT). I can see the spots on my spine on my MRI but that is where the differing opinions are coming in. Hugs to both you and your mom and know that you are not alone.

I have not. And the MRIs where done at the order of my orthopedic Dr. I went in thinking we were going to talk about the degenerative disk disease and the degenerative arthritis. So when we only talked about the spots on vertebrae (that I had no clue were there)......I was totally stunned. And then to have the orthopedic Dr say one thing and my oncologist to say another really threw me for a loop. I would think my oncologist would know but she told me that she doesn't even know what cancer looks like on the scans and she is dependent on her radiologist to tell her. That really didn't make me feel very good. Plus she didn't show me the scans or the report; whereas my orthopedic Dr showed me the scans and gave me copies of the reports and the scans. I really don't know what to think at this point. And am not confident in my oncologist at this point. Although I have been with her through the whole thing and have not doubted her before. I'm just amazed that two different radiologist would say two totally different things. My oncologist thinks it is unlikely because I had a bone scan in March and nothing showed up on that. And then when you read online about the different scans; I feel like I'm going backwards. I've read so much that says if it is early stages of mets (I only have 2 small spots) that it might not have enough activity to show up on the PET scan. I've also read that they usually do the MRI to confirm. Although that one can sometimes go the other way. As you can tell from my rambling post; I am all over the place and I guess really afraid that it is mets but my oncologist is going to just say we're going to watch it. I know it doesn't matter if I'm diagnosed now or in 3 months from now but I still would rather know now! It is so frustrating. Sorry to rant......it's just been a long 3 1/2 months of pain and not even realizing it could be mets. Then getting told it's mets, then it's not, then it is. And now waiting for the PET scan results. I will keep you in my prayers as well and hope that everything turns out clear!