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Nuclear Bone Scan

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Posted 12/6/2011 7:32 AM (GMT 0)
I’ve just had my fourth bone scan, which was clear this time – the last one had an area ‘suspicious for metastasis’ which was enough for the oncologist to accept it as definitive.

But….knowing how inaccurate all scans are, and how busy they were at the hospital yesterday, a thought struck me and I thought I’d ask for some input.

I have in the past had the injection of the nuclear material two hours before the scan. My understanding of the procedure was such that this was the optimum time for the take up of the material before the material started to decay as it has a short half life. Yesterday it was four hours before the scan started and four and a half hours by the time it finished.

I don’t know what material was used, but if for example it was 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) which seems to be commonly used, is it likely that the scan’s accuracy might be affected by the additional two hours before the scan was done?
Posted 12/6/2011 2:10 PM (GMT 0)
Terry,

As you may have seen from my posts on my PCa journey, I have had a number of scans in the last two years. Tc99 scans, MRIs and F18-PET/CT scans. To the best of my memory most of the scans I had took place somewhere between the 2-3 hour window after injection. But your question sent me on a search about scans.

I found this recently published document and it is one of the most complete explanations of the PCa bone scans I have ever seen. The whys, wherefores, and alternatives are thoroughly explained in great detail. I thought this might be of value to post on your thread.

It might even be a good document for a sticky on HW for questions about scans.

www.hindawi.com/journals/au/2012/893193/

Sonny
Posted 12/6/2011 3:07 PM (GMT 0)
Terry:

Interesting you should bring this up. I am currently cooling my heels waiting to complete my bone scan. I think it will be about 3 hours from the time of injection until the scan.

Mel

Posted 12/6/2011 3:20 PM (GMT 0)
It was two hours for me. They injected me and told me to go to lunch. (Which I did, but I think it was the lunch that gave me heartburn)...;-)

Tony
Posted 12/6/2011 4:23 PM (GMT 0)
Technetium-99m (99m-Tc) has a half life of 6 hours, in other words, the strength of the radiation will be half after 6 hours. If your scan started within 4 hours and finished with 8 hours, the scan should still be accurate.
Posted 12/6/2011 4:49 PM (GMT 0)
Well, for what it´s worth to you: my dad says he waited for the first scan over 3 hrs, and it showed 2 spots: on a pubic bone and one vertebrae. Six months later, he waited 2 hours and spot on the vertebrae was gone (the doctors assumed anyway that one was due to degenerative disease). When an MRI was done after the second scintigraphy, there indeed was a lesion on his pubic bone, in addition, one on the head of femur which did not light up on a bone scan.

Crazy stuff...

Great that your last bone-scan was clear!
Posted 12/7/2011 3:22 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks Guys - and especially for the study Sonny - that made very interesting reading.

I'll be updating my Yana and myProstate entries later today or tomorow but essentially, my PSA has been rising - it was 15 ng/ml while I was on Zoladex, so I thought it was time to have another bone scan, which is part of my long term surveillance plan and will be adding Casodex to the Zoladex to see if that makes a difference.
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