would appreciate opinions!

[teresasuesan]

Hello Everyone!

I'm still celebrating my negative Pet. However, I would appreciate input. I read an old article stating that the Pet is 82 percent accurate on the lung. Sine they have been tearing down our mountains for years, and I travel a lot to very remote jungles,it could be anything, but I really want answers as to why this thing doubled in size since July. I am planning on asking the thorasic about biopsies. (My mind went blank today!)

Thanks!

[john]

I think the doubling time for your nodule is about 40 days, which is pretty fast.

This would indicate that it is an infection or something else, probably not cancer. Also your Dr said it wasnt cancer.

The reason I think this, is that if the doubling time is that fast then it should show on the PET scan because the metabolic rate (I believe) would be high.

A PET scan wont always show slow growing cancers, but again since the doubling time is fast your nodule would not be a slow growing cancer and should show on a PET.

Since a PET scan measures metabollic activity, it may not be as effective for identifying tumors that have a low metabollic rate, such as carcinoid tumors, mucinous cancers (e.g., ovarian cancer), and low grade tumors (e.g., bronchioaveolar cell carcinoma fo the lung). PET scans are particularly useful in imaging the lungs and in measuring response to treatment for cancers that exhibit high FDG uptake.

I am not a Dr, but this is what I would guess.

A 2nd opinion is always in order if you feel uncomfortable. I imagine once the C word is mentioned it is hard to shake.

There are other characteristics of the nodule that are shown on the CT scan: calcification/non-calcification, density, spiculation that help with determining wheather a SPN (single pulmonary nodule) is benign

Good luck.