josephine3
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Posts:12
Hi, I am having a little trouble understanding my PET Scan. Could you please tell me
1.) If SUV measurements reaching 3.2 means the nodular is considered aggressive or indolent
2.) What does intraparenchymal pulmonary nodules mean?
3.) What does metabloically active but at a modest intensity mean. Could this mean possibly the cells could be normal taking up high amounts of glucose?
Thank you for your assistance.
Kindest regards,
J.
Forums
Reply # - September 16, 2013, 02:47 PM
Reply To: Assistance in reading a PET Scan
Hi Josephine,
As far as the SUV, the number itself is not as significant as whether it's rising or falling. As Dr. Pinder has said:
"There is really no bad number on SUVs and these numbers can vary even within the same patient depending on what time of day and what machine the study was done on. What is most important is the direction of the trend - if the tumor is shrinking and the brightness (SUV) is lessening, this is a good response no matter what the SUV is." - http://cancergrace.org/forums/index.php?topic=10358.msg82719#msg82719
As far as your third question, that language indicates that although it's metabolically active (not just dead tissue), it's only moderately so, and not likely to be growing quickly.
JimC
Forum moderator
Reply # - September 16, 2013, 08:24 PM
Reply To: Assistance in reading a PET Scan
I agree. an SUV of 3.2 is somewhat ambiguous, so a biopsy is the definitive way to determine what it represents. However, that is a relatively low SUV, so if it turns out to be a cancer, it's likely to be on the more indolent side of the spectrum.
Good luck.
-Dr. West