what have you all encountered with the waiting period to get the post treatment PET or MRI. My Doc wants to wait 9 weeks?

I had a CT scan two months after treatment and a PET 5 months after treatment. Are your lymph nodes getting smaller?

Ray the node seems to have shrunk way down. Ray would having a dose of Erbtux thrown in for good measure effect the waiting time. another thing that concerns me is that the initial PET showed a 9mm nodule on the right upper lung. Worried it could be growing during those nine weeks. Would the cisplatin have possibly shrunk that down?

I had my first post Tx Pet 9 months out and just had my 2nd Pet yesterday which was exactly one year apart. My ENT reqires them annually for the 1st five years post Tx. Hope this helps. Semper-Fi Bob

Bob, did you type that correctly, you waited 9 months for your first PET?

Yes, I finished treatment 11 Nov and had my 1st Post Tx Pet at 9 months out and just had my 2nd last Thursday. The team waited until they were fairly sure that they see NO false positives. Hope this helps. Semper-Fi Bob

Rick,

Team members vary as to when they want to do scans. My husband had his first pet around 3 months post-treatment and an MRI about 4 months after that. Most ENT's rely heavily on physical examination of the neck and scoping the throat (depending on location of tumor). I know it's difficult to wait but false positives are probably even more difficult to deal with so waiting until healing has occurred makes sense.

I finished Rads mid Aug. and had a prelim CT scan last week which came out to be good and have a PET scheduled late december along with another CT and possibly an MRI....I want to have all bases covered!

I had my first PET/CT scan 3 months out, and will have one every three months for awhile. (Not sure how long).

Sandyst

Hi Rick

Steve is almost 5 weeks post tx and the doctor told us today we would have another 4 to 8 weeks until they would begin doing tests. So the waiting period continues for us as well. Hang in there, tests will be done when the doctor's are sure it's the right time. I like to think they learnt something after all of their years of study although Steve thinks he can now be considered a doctor because he's so good at changing his peg dressing lol.

Wendy

Sandy,
getting a PET/CT combination every 3 months seems rather frequent.

M

I did not/have not gotten a PET post Tx other than 2 rather large dogs. I did have 3 scans in my first year though but nothing since.

lol @ 2 rather large dogs. You make me laugh David, thanks.


Wendy

The scan frequency and type seems to vary quite a bit between Cancer Centers.

I had my first post-Tx PET/CT after 10 weeks and my second six months thereafter.

I was told I will now be getting a PET/CT scan annually each May, but that doesn't preclude an extra scan if they need one (but, not necessarily a PET/CT).

The PET/CT scans are comparative and they wanted the post-Tx in about ten weeks to compare it to the one they took before Tx and as the post-Tx baseline.

I imagine it is a similar approach at many Cancer Center