Patient Advocate (old timer, 2000 posts) Joined: Nov 2002 Posts: 3,552 | Just a few things:
1. Most ENT's don't order scans.
2. They (meaning my onco;ogist) gave me one as part of my original diagnosis as part of a triage, because I was advanced stage. They wanted to see if I was treatable.
3. A few here get regular PET or PET/CT scans.
4. Some have had none.
5. The NCCN guidelines for oncology practice don't indicate them yet as a standard part of followup - just regular physical examinations, intervals determined by time and an annual chest x-ray.
6. Any followup scans, annual MRI, are always ordered by my RO but she won't order a PET -and she's a professor of clinical radiation oncology at a top CCC.
7. A few here have had potential distant metastesis caught early by PET ot PET/CT.
8. As Mark mentioned, false positives occur frequently in the post Tx while healing is still going on.
9. We have had many discussions on PET or not to PET -do a search on PET and you will find everything there is to know about PET or PET/CT.
Gary Allsebrook *********************************** Dx 11/22/02, SCC, 6 x 3 cm Polypoid tumor, rt tonsil, Stage III/IVA, T3N0M0 G1/2 Tx 1/28/03 - 3/19/03, Cisplatin ct x2, IMRT, bilateral, with boost, x35(69.96Gy) ________________________________________________________ "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14 NIV)
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