Accuracy of C Ts

Hi Hot chocca 

Interesting question and probably does need a professional radiologist to answer the question . The helpline might be able to get some info for you .

From an observation point of view my mum had over 65 scans over the last 15 years before she passed and certainly when she started out a tumour had to be over .5 of a cm to show up . Now that’s down to 2 mm and they are virtually watching them grow . On the other hand I have heard them say it’s not a brilliant image at times if she breathed or moved at the critical point . But I think on the whole they are pretty smart machines now unless it was an old scanned .

My mums bowel tumour had banded round her colon so I guess aspects like that might have implications .

5 cm lesions are mentioned a lot around here . How quickly they grow I honestly don’t know . My mum had liver mets that grew quickly but lung mets that  took years to grow a few mm. That was in the one body !!

I am sure your oncologist would be happy to pull up your last scan and get it checked again . Sometimes you just want to know !

Take care ,

Court 

Hi Hot chocca 

I also think your question is an interesting one. Others on here, as well as I, have experienced results stating significant growths of specific lesions since previous scans, when we had previously not been told about the lesions originally.

Consultants may perhaps have a size level where they feel they don't need to report as they may not be significant versus distress. To me, I would prefer to know anything, regardless of size.

There will always be % of human and computer error, as well as variable quality of scan images, to consider too. I guessing different trusts and third party radiology services will also vary in their accuracy and reliability.

If you are in doubt you can ask your consultant to clarify and if still not happy, ask for second opinion.

Good luck and please keep us posted on what you find out.

Typically colon cancer is very slow growing and chances are very good that there was something that caused that part of the CT image not to be clear. This is what I suspect happened. 

That said, yes it can grow that quickly. My rectal cancer tumor went from undetectable to 12.5 cm in 13 months. It was 4 cm after radiation and chemo but grew back to 8 cm by the time it was removed 4 months later. So 5 cm in a year is possible.  

Every tumor is different. Hopefully they will act promptly and get you into treatment. 

Thanks for u reply 

Hi Susan 13 

Thanks for ur reply ,it's good to talk with others 

CT’s aren’t very good for spotting tumours in the bowel; a tumour isn’t sufficiently different from the surrounding bowel tissue.  I had a CT the day after the colonoscopy where my tumour was found to see if it had spread. The radiologist knew where the tumour was and still couldn’t identify it.  I asked if this was normal (and worried that if the primary tumour couldn’t be seen metastases might be missed, too), and was told that yes, this is normal for the primary. Metastases (unless they’re tiny) can be seen even if the primary can’t. 

Good luck with what lies ahead of you.