I have had aspiration pneumonia on several occasions as a result of my inability to completely close off my trachea when swallowing. This is very common in people that have had radiation for oral cancers. In most they are unaware they are aspirating anything, but in fact very viscous liquids end up partially in your lungs, and a barium swallow test will confirm this. When it gets bad enough, patients end up back on PEG tubes, sometimes many years after the primary treatment. My CT scans, when this happens, are common for this radiographic finding you are describing.

Having said that, it can happen for other reasons. So I am attaching a link to a radiographic discussion of the subject.

http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/reprint/184/2/613

Please note that many of the other things described in this paper, are very remote possibilities, and I do not think you should be alarmed about some of the scarier things that it contains. The simplest explanations for things are usually the right ones.

PEG tubes often become infected, raw, and for people that are forcibly contracting their stomach when they vomit etc., it is not uncommon to have some blood near the opening. Besides bringing this to the attention of your doctors, you should daily (a couple of times) clean the area thoroughly, and coat it with an multi-spectrum antibiotic ointment (OTC from the drug store), to prevent opportunistic infections. When you speak with the doctors they will likely want to know if it is lots of blood, or small pink amounts on the tissues or gauze you clean it with. Copious amounts might lead them to want to do some kind of endoscopic examination of the stomach to confirm there is nothing more going on that the obvious possibilities.



Brian, stage 4 oral cancer survivor. OCF Founder and Director. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.