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Can you clarify your
Can you clarify your question? When your doc says you have a "new node" do you mean a new node that's showing positive for cancer?
I was diagnosed with
I was diagnosed with follecular NHL stage 4. It was in my nodes in my armpit, (right) neck, spleen, outer lining of my lung and 40% in my bones. She said that my cancer would respond well to treatment but it cannot be cured. It would come back. I had 6 cycles of chemo, was told I am in remission and 3 weeks after my last chemo she said" I feel an enlarged node. I told you it would come back. It is on my left side armpit. I asked her why it did not show up on the pet scan and she said that it probably does not have the hot spot yet. I am scheduled for a pet scan in November and we will take it from there. thus my question.
thank you
OK, I understand. Well as
OK, I understand. Well as you know follicular lymphoma is not considered 'curable' because it is such an indolent lymphoma, it grows too slowly for chemo or radiation to be effective.
Normally, a PET/CT scan is done at the end of treatment so that you can be 're-staged' and the docs can see whether treatment has worked. Unfortunately, even a perfectly clean PET/CT scan, with no 'hot spots', does not mean cancer has been eradicated from the body completely. The reason is simple (especially in lymphomas, which travel the lymph system and can settle in almost any of the several hundred lymph nodes in the human body): individual cancer cells, or even small groups of them, are too small to be picked up in a scan. A tumor has to be of a certain size in order to be 'hot' and therefore visible (in an ordinary X-ray, a tumor smaller than 1 centimeter in size probably will not be seen).
What makes a hot spot hot? As you probably also know, PET scans can ID malignant cancer because those cells devour glucose at a faster clip than healthy cells. But floating cancer cells won't show up because they're simply too small. However, over time they'll start to collect into a tumor and will appear on PET scans.
With all that said, for an indolent cancer, 3 weeks post treatment seems rather quick to be forming a new tumor.
Were you put on something like Rituxan maintenance to keep this in remission for longer?
no I was not. Thank you for
no I was not.
Thank you for the info.
Margie
I made a mistake. I had my
I made a mistake. I had my last chemo in first week of march. Pet scan in April and I was in remission. Another pet scan in August, remission. 3 weeks after my pet scan in August my doctor said it came back.
thanx,
sorry for the mistake