Good afternoon hopefully you can answer my question my mum had a mastectomy 3weeks ago and no problems tumour was big and aggressive her surgeon was happy that he had removed all cancer and it hadn’t spread 1.5 cm and 19 lymph nodes removed next step is chemo but her oncologist wants a bone scan as treatment will be different if in bones what will happen if it’s in her bones I’m just a little worried
Good afternoon Daryl R
Thanks for getting in touch and welcome to our online community. My name is Suzanne and I am one of the cancer information nurse specialists here at Macmillan.
I can see that you have joined a couple of our online forums and really hope you are finding them supportive.
It’s perfectly understandable that you are worried about your mum’s breast cancer diagnosis. This must be such a worrying and uncertain time for you all.
It is reassuring that her surgeon feels confident that her cancer appears not to have spread. It is also good that he is being thorough by offering a bone scan, just to be as sure as he can be.
As well as looking for any secondary bone cancer, a bone scan can also help your mum’s cancer doctors to assess her bones before she has any further treatments. This is important because some cancer treatments can affect the bones too.
If she has any cancer cells present in her bones, this may or may not affect her current treatment plan. We have some information around secondary bone cancer which explains this in more detail. You’ll see from this that chemotherapy may still be an option in some cases.
It is impossible to predict the outcome of the bone scan Daryl, and it can become overwhelming to think too much about the possibilities, difficult though it is not to.
It may help to focus instead on helping your mum to prepare for treatment. Our information around supporting someone with cancer may also be useful.
As we can often support you better emotionally over the telephone it may also help to give us a call on the support line. We are here every day from 8am -8pm on 0808 808 0000. Please feel free to encourage your mum to call us too if she would like to.
Best wishes and take care,
Suzanne, Cancer Information Nurse Specialist
You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email.
Ref/SF/Lrob
Thank you so much for your kind support 
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