Who reads the CTs? - 1244954

Hi teresa567,

It's pretty easy to worry about CT results, regardless of who seems to be interpreting them. I would guess that when your onc reads the CT on the computer screen, he has also seen the radiologist's report, but is adding his own judgment based on his experience and knowledge of your mom's overall situation. Radiologists don't have all the background information on a patient, they simply read the scan, comparing it to previous scans if available. But they don't know anything about symptoms, etc. So in general I think it's a very good thing that your onc, with many years of experience (including reading CT scans), is adding his opinion to that of the radiologist.

Congratulations on the good scan result in June!

JimC
Forum Moderator

we have the radiologists report, but the onc always also looks at the report briefly and the scan in detail.

They also go through it with us, on the screen, comparing to a previous scan.

Its very helpful to see the scans side by side and see the progression (either positive or negative).

I think it's helpful to get a perspective from both. I like to review the scans myself, but I'm not a professional radiologist and can certainly overlook some things, especially if I'm not looking for them (they're trained to be thorough about looking for changes in what was there before but also in checking for new things). At the same time, when they don't have the context, they can highlight things that really aren't clinically significant, misinterpret the cause of changes (not knowing someone had radiation to the chest could lead them to presume an infiltrate is infection or perhaps cancer, though it is more likely to be post-radiation inflammation, for instance), and the report tends to include a lot of CYA language that alarms a reader who doesn't know to automatically discount a lot of it. I do find it helpful to review the scans that may well sound like there's significant progression, when in fact the disease is far less worrisome when you actually look at it.

I really try to emphasize for my patients that the main question is whether, with the treatment we're doing, the disease is better, worse, or the same (combined with their tolerance of it). Most of us with reasonable experience can readily assess that even if we don't have the expertise to scrutinize and interpret every detail.

-Dr. West