IMO: PET scans are essentially worthless for tongue cancer patients since all they measure is sugar uptake and in my case, 4 times failed to distinguish normal tongue area tissue recovery from cancer. As bad as the false positives of a PETscan on Tongue cancer patients are, even worse were the false negatives those PETscans showed that lulled my doctors and myself into thinking my first TX was successful.
The head of the entire Nuclear Medicine department at my CCC took the time to sit down with me and show me screen by screen just how the colors and images worked and sure enough normal tissue that was healing did indeed look like cancer. They appear to be a great tool for almost every other type of cancer and even most oral cancer, but there is a solid basis for being "unsure about PET results" if you have tongue cancer. My doctors at the CCC are unanimous in having me get MRIs now instead of PETscans. Every MRI I have had has been 100% accurate.
Charm