Interpreting PET Scan

kimf

Interpreting PET Scan

kimf

Hi everyone. I'm not usually on this board, I'm a stage III'er, but I need help understanding a PET scan that my father in law just had and I know you ladies are pro's at this stuff.

In brief, the doctors believe that my FIL has bile duct or gall bladder cancer that has spread to the liver, but they have been unsuccessful in three biopsy attempts. The PET was done 10/18, a day after they inserted a drainage tube into his liver to drain bile that had been backing up for weeks due to a blocked bile duct.

This is what the verbiage on the report states...Does anyone understand this? The Oncologist has not called to discuss the report, and with it being the weekend, we are anxious to understand it.

CLINICAL HISTORY:  The patient...with a history of porta hepatis lymph nodes and gallbladder soft tissue on CT who presents for diagnosis of lymphoma....

FINDINGS: Evaluation of the abdomen and pelvis shows crescentric increased activity in the right upper quadrant. This finding corresponds to the medial aspect of the gallbladder thickening and ill-defined soft tissue density surrounding the gallbladder identified on CT. The SUV measures 3.9 and the lesion-to-liver ratio measures 1.1. Both of these values are in the intermediate range and are somewhat lower than expected fro neoplasm this area (SUV > 4.5. lesion-to-liver ratio > 1.7) However, neoplasm cannot be excluded....

IMPRESSION:  Immediate FDG activity corresponding to the medial aspect of the gallbladder thickening and solf tissue densities surrounding the gallbladder on CT is considered equivocal. Neoplasm cannot be excluded. Porta hepatis lymph nodes seen on CT show no FDG activity. Consider C-reative protein as the C-reactive protein is greater than 1.0.

Okay, so that is it in a nutshell. If anyone understands this, please let me know. You can PM me or post, either way. Thank you in advance for you help.

Kimf

AliceJean

Well, I'm certainly not a radiologist but it sounds like they cannot rule out cancer (neoplasm) but according to the values they found they don't know that it isn't something else. Hope that helps.

kimf

Thanks Alice Jean,

I went with my in laws yesterday to the Oncologist and she pretty much said the same thing. That the PET scan didn't say anything, really. Didn't shed any light. She said that some cancers don't take in the glucose like others. Did anyone ever hear that before? I've always thought that they use PET scans across the board to look for metastasis and localized spread. The gall bladder area did show up, but not significantly. And the enlarged lymph nodes that showed up on the CT scan, didn't light up at all on the PET.

Thanks.

Kim

AliceJean

Yeah, I had a PET last week and it came back completely normal, which was rather contradictory to previous scans, the last in Sept. So I am still being suspicious that the uptake just may not have worked well.