What do you mean by Hot Spot?

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

I notice many posts mention "hot spots". What does this mean? Is this a phrase the doctors use or is it used in the reports?

On my bone scan it says

"There is a single mild increase uptake seen at the costochondral juntion of what appears to be approximately the 6th left rib. The appearance is more in keeping of traumatic injury and not metastic disease."

Is that what is known as a hot spot?

I'm still waiting for my onc's office to call with results of this bone scan which I picked up at hospital. I called them to see if he wanted to see me sooner than next appt. in June and was told no.

Off now to rad onc and primary doctors appts.

[Donna D.]

Our doctor refers to hot spots in my husbands case as areas that he is keeping an eye on for bone mets. He has a few "hot spots" on both thighs, elbow, wrist and hip. As I am reading from what you wrote from your bone scan, (I am not a doctor) it looks like yours is an old injury and not thought to be a met. Sounds like this is good news to me.

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Thanks Donna. Actually, they said it was new since my last bone scan in late December 2003. But the area they're talking about has hurt for years but not so badly. I did fall ice-skating straight on my back and head about 6 or 7 years ago. Never got it checked out. I was hoping it was an old injury that got "refreshed" because I twisted the wrong way or maybe because I kept pressing on it to massage making it worse!

really gotta go or will be late to appts.

[chloesmom]

When I had my PET, the surgeon called back to tell me that the suspicious area "lit up", but nothing else did. That meant that something was going on with that spot--infection, inflammation, or cancer. It was one of those three, but we wouldn't know until tissue was tested.

I think your results say that this is more than likely something not to worry about--just from an old injury. That is really great news!

[john]

A PET scan shows the "uptake" of sugar. Since sugar uptake is sometimes higher in cancer cells, the PET scan detects the ammount of sugar uptake and codes it into brightness or colors.

Brighter means more uptake, so I imagine that is where the terms "lit up" and "hot spot" came from. I think sometimes the activity is coded red in a pet scan so it is hot.

With bone scans I think they are usually in black and white. The black areas show uptake or "hot spots"

http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=151

The images show activity levels as different colors or degrees of brightness. If the test has been ordered to look for a cancer, brighter colors may indicate a tumor

[Guest bean_si (Not Active)]

Thanks for the info to everyone. John, that link really cleared it up for me.

I have osteoporosis & have had pain around my left shoulder on and off for years. Yeah, the bone scan says that the finding is new and wasn't there last time. BUT when it first started bothering me again, I tried to massage it myself and was pressing very hard. It got worse after that. I could have bruised the bone (my primary told me you can actually bruise a bone).

Thanks again.