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Breast Cancer (Expert Forum)
Bone scan question
Questions posted in the Breast Cancer Forum are answered by medical professionals from The Cleveland Clinic. Topics include Breast Biopsy, Chemotherapy, Hormone Therapy, Lumps, Lumpectomy, Lymph node dissection, Lymphedema, Mammograms, Mastectomy, Radiation Therapy, Reconstruction, Self Breast Exam, and Surgery.
Bone scan question
by Tessrose, Jan 13, 2004 12:00AM
My 67-year-old mother has breast cancer with metastases to the liver and lungs. I'm concerned that her oncologist won't order a bone scan to check for bone mets. She has had some hip pain, but the doctor doesn't think the pain is severe enough to pursue. He ordered an X-ray, but he didn't see cancer there. I might add that mom had a cough for 6 months before a CT scan was ordered and the lung nodules did not show up on X-ray. Her last bone scan was in 1997 with her original diagnosis. Is it reasonable not to order a bone scan or should we insist? Thank you.
Doctor's Answer
by CCF-RN,MSN-rf, Jan 13, 2004 12:00AM
Dear Tessrose: If it has been three years since she has had a bone scan and she is having new pain, it is reasonable to do a bone scan. Especially since she has metastatic disease already.
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with metastases in liver and lung, the goals at this point are symptom control, managing quality of life issues; anti-tumor therapies may still be useful if they can be shown to be holding the tumors in check to some degree. So as to hip pain: if it's controlled adequately by whatever means it's not relevant to the overall picture what a bone scan would look like. If pain were not being controlled, and if radiation to the area would be a consideration for pain management if it were found to be due to cancer, then a bone scan might be a consideration.