"Suspicious for osteoblastic metastasis"

Hello ansteynomad 

It's all part of the medical mystery!! On my MRI I had a "shadow" on my pelvis - urology said cancer oncology said not. The answer was to blast it with radiotherapy "just in case".

I would have thought a CT scan with contrast would have answered the question, one way or another - the definite answer would be a PSMA- PET scan but these cost the NHS between £2500 and £ 3250.

If it's hardening of the bone it could well be old age - but why just there and why not find out what it is.

I hope my ramblings help - please do let us know how you get on.

Best wishes - Brian.

Hi ansteynomad , hopefully you will know more after the MDT this week.  Once on HT the pressure is off and I suspect they will suggest RT in a few months (after the HT has had time to work).  

When I had the "full monty" of scans during my diagnosis they detected 2 lesions on my spine (!!!), a little worringly they all said it was nothing to worry about it and they would look at it after my radio therapy. Several months after my RT they did an MRI on that region of the spine. The diagnosis was that the lesions were haemangiomas - which I had never heard of. Apparently quite a large percentage of the population have these lesions, in the main they are benign and are usually only detected when people are scanned for other reasons............or at post mortems. I did see a spinal consultant privately just to set my mind at rest - which he did !

My lesions in the bones are called exactly that lesions in my bones. You have been told that there is an area suspicious for Oesteoblastic metastasis (cancer lesions), that’s just another way of putting it.

I read other travellers cancerous CV’s and wonder about the scary terminology of their reports where complex names and detailed sizes and densities are in unimaginable focus. My reports are not like those, my reports are somewhat dumbed down by the language chosen by my oncology department as the data is handed from scan report clinician to the head oncologist then onto the typing pool via MDT’s and god knows who. I still don’t understand it in its complex entirety and will, if needed, ask my specialist cancer nurse or head oncologist when I can.

As already said by someone else, the HT will give you time, and space to ask questions and form an opinion about what real data has been gathered and deliberated on.

Keep those questions handy for your team for question-time whenever that is. In the meantime we will give you all the comfort and help you ask for as experts-in-our-own-experiences - not experts in your singular treatment route.

Give yourself a day of wondering and go out wandering.

Thank you. These are scary times. The hospital gives us snippets of information,  but the journey towards a definitive diagnosis has so far taken 11 weeks. My husband also has a neurological issue that is deteriorating very fast and frankly I am unsure whether he will be fit for, or accept treatment for his PCa whenever they get round to offering him something, so HT and time to consider the options is not a given.

Hi A

Does something only show on the iliac bone or is the prostate gland affected ? , Do you have any PSA test results.

Best wishes

Steve

PSA was 7.5. Biopsy shows PCa, Gleason Score 4+3. He was told initially Stage 4 after MRI, now Stage 3a, N1 after biopsy with one lymph node affected. The iliac lesion was picked up by the MRI and assumed to be metastasis, now after full body scan (which showed nothing else) they don't know.

Tumour, Node and Metastasis (TNM)

T3

T3 means the cancer has broken through the capsule (covering) of the prostate gland. It’s divided into T3a and T3b.

• T3a means the cancer has broken through the capsule (covering) of the prostate gland.
• T3b means the cancer has spread into the tubes that carry semen (seminal vesicles).

(ref: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/prostate-cancer/stages/tnm-staging)

Exactly

PSA is quite low for it to have spread, quite rare for that especially as Gleeson not too high.

What did the Mri say in terms of tumour within the gland?

Any other PSA figures from before that one?

Steve