PET CT OR MAMMOGRAPH - 1267048

huiyuan49
Posts:36

I have a question. As I understand PET CT is more accurate than mammograph . If my PET CT reported nothing wrong with me ( from neck to pelvis . I had LC 1b) Do I need to take mammograph for screening. I am 65 with no family breast cancer history. Thank you.

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Reply # - November 10, 2014, 07:15 AM

JimC
Posts: 2753

Hi huiyuan49,

With respect to breast cancer, it's not strictly true that a PET CT is better than a mammogram. Although breast abnormalities certainly can appear, not all breast cancer is imaged well by PET scan, especially small tumors. You may want to read this article from the Journal of Clinical Oncology: http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/23/8/1664.long

The conclusion is that “In short, the results of FDG-PET for the initial detection and diagnosis of primary breast cancer vary, largely due to heterogeneity of the disease and tumor size. Although some nuclear medicine physicians expected that FDG-PET would serve as a “metabolic biopsy” as a means of screening, this is not yet the case for breast cancer.”

On the other hand, with your existing cancer diagnosis being the most pressing issue, you may want to discuss with your doctors whether they feel a screening mammogram (in the absence of any suspicion of breast cancer) would be appropriate. As Dr. West has said (in the context of advanced lung cancer, which may not necessarily be your situation):

"[T]here isn’t a lot of value in looking for problems that just aren’t relevant from a time perspective if someone is managing advanced lung cancer. It’s extraordinarily unlikely that a very small, PET-negative breast cancer would have any impact on the survival of someone who is dealing with a much tougher situation because of the lung cancer." - http://cancergrace.org/topic/would-a-pet-scan-detect-breast-anomaly#pos…

JimC
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Reply # - November 10, 2014, 01:13 PM

huiyuan49
Posts: 36

Dear Mr JimC,

Thank you so much for your help. The information you provided is timely and helpful. I will discuss this issue with my Onc.

Also, I would like to thank Dr. West for his advice. Around one year ago when I "consulted" him about if I should have one more mutation test; he gave me a very clear answer of "no" ( I had KRAS positive then) Based on it I made a correct decision. I really appreciate it.

I have been NED for almost two years. Again thank you.

Best regards,

Huiyuan

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