PET scan results

A PET scan, or Positron Emission Tomography scan, is an imaging technique that allows physicians to examine many organs of the body and is helpful in diagnosing many diseases, such as cancer. Other techniques, such as CT scan or MRI, only show organ structure, where as PET shows organ structure and function.

Yesterday my PET scan showed all of the malignant lymph nodes to be inactive - in other words, none of the cells there showed any signs of actively using energy. This is excellent news and the hematologists were quite happy. However, because such a scan does not guarantee that there are not some cells that are still active on a very low level, the chemotherapy must continue as scheduled for the full 12 treatments.

Other news was also good; the white blood cell count remains excellent, so instead of having five shots every two weeks of the G-CSF formula which regulates this, I now only need four..

One piece of bad news is that my lung function continues to deteriorate, so that they may still need to alter the chemotherapy formula to remove this drug from the cocktail of four I am given. However, the doctor said he was not too fussed about this, especially given the good PET results...

NOTE: the scan above is not mine, just one I pulled from the internet.