Radionuclide bone scan:
A "bone scan" helps show whether your cancer has spread from the prostate gland to bones. You will receive an intravenous injection of a small amount of a radioactive material. The radioactive substance settles in damaged bone tissue throughout the entire skeleton. The injection itself is the only uncomfortable part of the entire scanning procedure.
You will then lie on a table for about 30 minutes and be scanned by a machine that detects radioactivity and creates a picture of your skeleton. Areas of bone damage will be more radioactive and will appear as "hot spots" in your skeleton. These areas may suggest metastatic cancer is present, but arthritis or other bone diseases can also cause the same pattern. To distinguish among these conditions, your cancer care team may use other imaging tests such as simple x-rays, CT, or MRI or even take bone biopsies to better evaluate these hot spots.
Because the amount of radioactivity used is very low, it carries no harmful side effects for you or others.
Computed tomography (CT):
The CT scan (also known as a CAT scan) is an x-ray procedure that produces detailed, cross-sectional images of your body. Instead of taking one picture, as does a conventional x-ray, a CT scanner takes many pictures of the part of your body being studied as it rotates around you. A computer then combines these pictures into an image of a slice of your body.
This test can help tell if prostate cancer has spread into lymph nodes in your pelvis. If your prostate cancer has come back after treatment, the CT scan can often tell whether it is growing into structures in your pelvis. On the other hand, CT scans rarely provide useful information about newly diagnosed prostate cancers that are believed to be localized (confined to the prostate) based on their clinical stage, PSA level, and Gleason score. CT scans are not as useful as magnetic resonance imaging for evaluating the prostate gland.
CT scans take longer than regular x-rays. You need to lie still on a table, and the part of your body being examined is placed within the scanner, a doughnut-shaped machine that completely surrounds the table. But just like other computerized devices, they are getting faster and your stay might be pleasantly short. Also, you might feel a bit confined by the ring you have to lay in when the pictures are being taken.
After the first set of pictures is taken you may be asked to drink 1 or 2 pints of a radiocontrast agent, or "dye." You may also receive an IV (intravenous) line through which the contrast dye is injected. You will also need to drink enough liquid to have a full bladder in order to keep the bowel away from the area of the prostate gland. This helps better outline structures in your body. A second set of pictures is then taken.
The solution you drink and the injection may cause some flushing (a feeling of warmth, especially in the face). Some people are allergic and get hives; rarely more serious reactions like trouble breathing or low blood pressure can occur. Be sure to tell the doctor if you have ever had a reaction to any contrast material used for x-rays.
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Information You Should Read
Stanford Univ. video on PCa
The Prostate - What, Where
The Prostate Biopsy
How To Tell a "Physician Artist"
The Doctors Appointment
Insignificant Cancer
Vocabulary, Glossary, etc.
Tables, Tests, Markers etc.
Gleason Info and Partin Tables
PSA - What it is and means
Locally Advanced Cancer
BPH
Prostatitis
Other Diagnostic Tools
Veterans Information
