Advice please on treatment

Hello

I wonder if someone could help me out.

The question is relevant to pancreatic cancer and also to cancer tumors in general.

I have been given to understand that a tumor is not always 100% cancerous (active)

For example a tumor may be 5% or 35% cancerous ( cancerous/active on the outside of the tumor with the middle not active).

Apparently, when a CT scan is taken,(after a period of treatment) it will not show up a small shrinkage.

So, for example, if a tumor was 5% active and chemotherapy had killed all of the cancerous cells and thereby shrunk the tumor by 5%,( the scan would not pick up the relevant shrinkage), so for all you know the part of the tumor that was cancerous may well have been ' killed' off.

I have also been told that the only way to tell how much of the tumor is actually active is by a PET scan

Firstly is this correct?

Secondly, if this were the case, is it possible to have a scenario that you could be receiving treatment for a tumor is no longer cancerous?

Thank you for any help you can offer

simon

I see no-one else has answered and it may be because no-one has an answer. I'm not sure I do either, I just wanted to let you know that my husband recently had a PET scan as part of a trial to assess PET scan usage in diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer. His team were excited that he was offered it precisely because it tells them the extent of the active cells. The results didn't tell us anything different to what the CT scan had shown though so it didn't seem to me to give us anything new. Perhaps if PET scans were done at regular stages that would be more helpful. Not sure that helps at all but good luck in finding out - and if you do perhaps you could come back and share...

Simon - have you tried emailing the PCUK support team directly, or giving them a ring? They may be in a better position to help.

Good luck.

Deb

Hello

Thank you both for your replies

I am presently e mailing ( back and forth) the moderators of this site since they replied to me directly after seeing my question on the forum and they felt it may confuse other readers.

They have been very helpful.

They accept that a CT scan may not pick up a 10% difference in size of tumor.

At present they have asked me to check with my oncologist regarding the matter where I have been informed that a cancerous tumor can be 5%, 10% , 35% etc active/cancerous. This I had already done and my understanding is apparently correct.

If this is correct then it present an intriguing question, which i originally asked, that being if a tumor was ,say 10% active and after chemotherapy that 10% was ' killed' off, then how would you know that tumor was no longer active since the CT scan would not necessarily pick it up? and if this were the case could you not possibly be receiving treatment ( chemotherapy) for a tumor that was no longer active? How would you ever know???

Now I know the 10% figure will not apply to all tumors, but it is a question worthy of an answer

The PET scan issue by the way. You would not want too many of those owing to the high radiation and added health risks.

Thanks for your time

Simon

Hi Simon

Thank you for coming back to us with all you have learnt. This is certainly news to me and absolutely fascinating. I assume you also need to take into account blood markers - I thought they were indicative of how active cancer cells were at any particular time? I guess that it is always a combination of factors that dictate what is decided as the best way forward? It is obviously so important if we can understand as much as possible - so often we just trust the experts and do whatever they think best without really understanding any of it. Do let us know if you learn any more that can be shared and be of help.

Kind regard

Deb