Rick,
Welcome here. So, lets move to your first question -- my reaction to a stable irregular 1 cm nodule with a SUV of 1.6. It could be anything but not cancer with the very low SUV uptake. It could be an early find, just starting to be metastatic disease but that is unlikely. An SUV of 1.6 is a very very low response to a PET. SUVs of 5 or 6 start the concern rate; 8 and higher is metastatic cancer. Here is my go to resource on lung nodules. Many things can cause them and some of them have appeared and disappeared in my many scans. So yes a radiologist might in fact have discovered a new nodule but a 1 cm nodule is very small and certainly capable of forming in the span of 4 months.
It is generally very hard to biopsy nodules the size of 1 cm. We are dealing with less than a 1/2 inch mass in diffuse lung tissue. It has been done but most doctors will advise a watch and weight strategy. If it doubles in size 2 months from now, it will still be an early find, easily biopsied and easily treated. So I wouldn't worry.
I think your delving into survivor statistics is premature at this stage of the game. But, we all do it and Google returns scare us to death. Here is an essay I wrote on Survival Statistics that may be of interest. Medical statistics and projections are very imprecise. For additional insight, I strongly suggest listening to the Stephen Jay Gould essay link in the blog. That gives a more scholarly view on predictive statistics.
Stay the course.
Tom
HI, Rick, I see you started your own thread! I'm sure someone(s) with helpful info for you will be along soon.
And I, too, would be interested to know how that could be considered "stable." I have a few lung nodules, which were observed over a year ago, stable on a three-month re-scan, and then on the last screening scan one had increased 2-3 mm since last year. I have surgery scheduled a week from Monday. The other nodules I have are still considered "stable" but that's because there's something to compare them to.
Hi Rick, I too am mystified about how something could be found "stable" with only one data point. When my small nodule was found by the radiologist, the pulmonogist looked back at my prior scans. (I also get regular scans due to another cancer.) She said that knowing where it was, she could look back and see that it had started growing earlier, but that it was so small and indistinct that it only was recognizable in retrospect, so to speak. So your situation could be something like that, perhaps. Your oncologist should be able to help you clarify this, and you might want to also see a pulmonologist.
Best of luck to you.
Bridget
