re what s a bone scan in article cindy 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 picl fsphy physics fsu edu the chief function of the body is to carry the head around albert einstein
