Hi --

Darrell mentioned the importance of getting an experienced reading of the PET/CT scan -- this is of course important for any scan -- if the radiologist is used to looking at a lot of head and neck cancer patients, there will be far fewer false positives. When Barry had his first PET/CT scan, we talked to the radiologist who does primarily HNC and brain cancers -- he said they get few false positives because lots and lots of experience has taught them what is cancer and what is inflammation, healing tissue or active tissue. That doesn't mean the rate is zero, however -- if they see something suspicious they might do an MRI, or if area is accessible, would do a biopsy. Or wait a month and re-scan.

Barry's first PET/CT showed no activity in area where he had the cancer but here was activity (that is, uptake of the radioisotope) associated with residual inflammation and some scarring in his right lung where he had the pneumonia, also in some muscle groups like the ones which move arms (they do the head/neck scan with arms at side, full-body scan with arms above head).

He was told to limit activity in the day before the scan, no food for 4 hours before. I have also seen directions (from other hospitals) to limit eating foods high in sugars for 24 hours. This is to get the body a bit glucose-starved so the labelled sugar will be absorbed. The nurse will do a blood-sugar reading beforehand. The label was given by IV -- first saline for hydration and then, the radioactive-labelled sugar injected into the IV tube. Once the isotope is injected, Barry was left in a darkened room for 45 minutes, NO talking, NO reading, no nothing which might involve muscle activity and which might compete for glucose.

The scans themselves took about 45 minutes to an hour. We got the results that day. Barry has another week after next (3 months) so naturally our fingers and toes are crossed until then!

Erik, hope your scan came through clean and wishing you the best!

Gail