From: picl25@fsphy1.physics.fsu.edu (PICL account_25)
Subject: Re: What's a bone scan?
Organization: Florida State University - School of Higher Thought
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Reply-To: picl25@fsphy1.physics.fsu.edu
Lines: 42

In article <cindy.349@berkp.uadv.uci.edu>, cindy@berkp.uadv.uci.edu (Cindy Windham) writes...
>My mother has been advised to have a bone scan performed?  What is this
>procedure for, and is it painful?  She's been having leg and back pain
>which her GP said was sciatica.  Her oncologist listened to her symptoms
>and said that it didn't sound like sciatica, and she should get a bone
>scan. 

Do I assume correctly from the above aricle that your mother has a historyy
of cancer?  I was just wondeing, since you mentioned thhat she has an
oncologist.

A bone scan is a nuclear scan.  Thperson receivving the scan is gven a
dose of a radioactive tracer, and an imaging device is used to track the
distribution of the tracer wwithin the body.  The tracer is usually given
intravenously.  (IV) This means that the physician or his assistant will
insert a needle into a vein and inject  medicine into the vein. 

After a few minutes has passed for the tracer to circulate through the
body, the person is scanned with an imaging device to detect high 
concentrations of the tracer.  The radiologist or doctor is looking for
areas that take up more of the radioactive tracer or less of it.

As far as pain, the only pain comes from the needle stick that is required
to start the IV line.

What the doctor is probably looking for are changes in the bones that may
have resulted from cancer.  This is also why I was wondering if your mother
has had cancer, since cancer can spread from one site and wind up in the
skeletal system.

I hope I have answered some of your questions.  Feel free to e-mail me if
you have more questions related to the bone scan or anything else related
to your mother's care.  I'm a newly graduated nurse, and I enjoy sharing
information with other people to help them understand things that they did
not know about before.

My thoughts are with you both.

Elisa B. Hanson   (picl25@fsphy1.physics.fsu.edu)
"The chief function of the body is to carry the head around."
                                        --Albert Einstein

