Petscan Results

You have to smile when your doctor makes a point of saying "the results are good" when they pass you in the hallway before your appointment.  I got my petscan results, and everything has decreased.  My first pet said that there were 7-10 lesions; the second pet said that there were 3 individual lesions and 1 area of confluent lesions (multiple lesions that are merged together) .  This time the word lesion was never used on the results just the term focus.  My doctor says that is a good sign that they are no longer seeing a significant mass in each place.   There are no new lesions or areas of cancer, which is wonderful!  We still can't tell sizing, but the uptake (SUV - how brightly it lit up)  for each area did the following:

* posterior dome focus went from 5.6 down to 3.6

* left lobe lesion which had an suv of 4.5 is GONE!!!

* confluent lesions in right lobe went from 6.1 down to 4.3

* inferior left lobe focus went from 5.2 down to 3.2

The liver is a metabolically active organ so its normal uptake is between 2-3, and dying cells are more metabolically active. So the two areas that are in the 3's are so close to normal that we hope they will be be going away with the other soon.  While not dancing with NED (no evidence of disease) yet, I can't help but be thrilled with these results.  At stage 4, you are happy with staying stable and seeing no progression; so seeing regression is like icing on the cake.

We are going to repeat tumor markers again on Monday when I get my port accessed for my surgery just so that we have a post-chemo baseline.  My surgery is Tuesday 2/5, and then I will begin an aromatase inhibitor which will  block the enzyme that the  adrenal glands, fat, etc. use to produce estrogen.  These types of medicine can also shrink areas of cancer, but they work a little slower than chemo.  After seeing my oncologist every two weeks, it feels a little weird to know that it will be 6 weeks before the next appointment, but that will give me time to get used to the new medicine and for it to begin to work.   We'll do tumor markers again at that appointment, and she said we'll wait about 3 months or so to do the next petscan.  

That is my good news and next plan of action! I am so glad that things are still moving in the right direction, and am very thankful for all of the thoughts and prayers for these tests.  Please keep them coming as I move into this next stage of treatment.  They mean more than I can express!