PET scan after chemo
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I found the same information Mary. Her primary dr kept saying that he personally prefers ct scans to monitor progress. He also said she would not ever be a candidate for surgery. Must be an underlying reason. He also said in these cases he doesn’t find Y90 to be successful because more than one blood source is feeding the tumors and you end up damaging live tissue as well. But again, he said that’s his preference but if we wanted to pursue it he would still support it.
Hi Jeff,
I looked for information on your question, and did find recommendations in favor of waiting a few weeks or a month after chemotherapy ends before performing a PET scan, but nothing specific to CCA. Sources noted the possibility of false negatives because chemo can repress tumor metabolic activity and the possibility of false positives due to inflammation from chemo, but I don’t know if either would be expected with CCA.
Different types of scans yield different information. A question that crossed my mind when I read your report of your MIL’s positive results was whether she could now be reconsidered for surgery. Usually a CT or MRI would be used for that purpose as they better define the features of the tumors.
Hopefully other board members can chime in on this topic, regarding any timing issues with PET scans they have discussed with their doctors.
Regards, Mary
So my MIL has a primary onc at university of Michigan, and a secondary one in her local town that administers the chemo. She had 6 months of chemo and the secondary dr ordered a pet scan about a week after her chemo. The PET scan showed dramatic changes for the better. We just met with the primary onc and he said he prefers ct scans, because a PET scan done right after chemo can have skewed results because of the chemo.
So the primary is recommending a ct scan, then 3 months off chemo, the another ct scan to see if anything changes.
Has anyone here been told that you need to wait to have a pet scan until after a few weeks/months since a chemo treatment? I can’t understand why the secondary onc would have ordered one so soon if it wouldn’t have been accurate, but that dr doesn’t deal with this type of cancer either.
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