Another query! Husband 9 weeks post treatment and doing well overall. Hospital always told us he would have a PET scan 12 weeks post treatment. Today at his appointment he was told it now 4 months post treatment. They did not comment if this is for clinical reasons or because of capacity, which we suspect is the case. What are others experiences of when this scan was done? Our concern is if there is any cancer still present its delaying the time when this would be seen. Just feel they are moving the goalposts.
Hi. I had mine at 16 weeks. Because RT causes a lot of inflammation it can show up as a false positive on PETs. A lot of oncologists are moving to 16 weeks for this reason. Even then I had an avid scan. My oncologist told me that six months was even better
If you get a positive with an early scan it has to be followed up either with a rescan or a biopsy. You can see that all this just costs more resources.
Our concern is if there is any cancer still present its delaying the time when this would be seen. Just feel they are moving the goalposts.
No that’s not the case. Early failure is extremely rare and this early after treatment it’s hard to differentiate cancer from inflammation
So don’t worry. The goalposts might have been moved but it won’t make any difference.
Good luck.
Dani
Base of tongue cancer. T2N0M0 6 weeks Radiotherapy finished January 2019
I wrote a blog about my cancer. just click on the link below
https://todaymycoffeetasteslikechristmasincostarica.com
