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Medical Forum / General / General / May 2005How to read a gallium scan.
I had an injection of gallium and my first scan 6 hours later. It showed all my internal organs. The nurse said tomorrow I might be able to see the lymph nodes. The way they postiion me I can see the monitor. Is there a way to tell where a problem is or a cancer is? Just curious. To read a nuclear medicine scan, you first have to know normal anatomy, then the normal distribution of the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect any abnormality, which may or may not be cancer. Every case is different, that's why the radiologist who will read your scan studied many years in that particular field.... So unfortunetly, the bottom line answer is "no". Good luck K. > I had an injection of gallium and my first scan 6 hours later. It > showed all my internal organs. The nurse said tomorrow I might be able > to see the lymph nodes. The way they postiion me I can see the monitor. > Is there a way to tell where a problem is or a cancer is? > > Just curious. >>To read a nuclear medicine scan, you first have to know normal anatomy, then the normal distribution of the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect any abnormality, which may or may not be cancer. Every case is different, that's why the radiologist who will read your scan studied many years in that particular field.... So unfortunetly, the bottom line answer is "no". << COMMENT: Oh, heck, the real answer is he probably has cancer in all those lit-p organs, and needs to be told that, as a penalty for coming here with such a chain-jerking question which he knows very well has a proper answer at a proper time, or else they would have told him on the spot. BTW, as with all chemical elements, the symbol is capitalized, but the name is not, no matter how exotic. Thus, Ga and gallium, not Gallium. Not even Uranium, but uranium. SBH > >>To read a nuclear medicine scan, you first have to know normal > anatomy, then [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > SBH Test ordering is always capitalized thus "Gallium Scan". BUN not bun. Radio Fibrinogen not radio fibrinogen. CBC not cbc. If you want to drive somebody crazy then hand right it out long hand and make people think it is a descriptive sentence and not separate tests. The blocking of the letters make it readable. >>Test ordering is always capitalized thus "Gallium Scan". << Please see above where the guy talked about "the normal distribution of the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect any abnormality," Does that look like a test order to you? If so, don't go into nursing. Anyway, the capitalization of all words in tests is not a standardized thing. The first letter of orders, yes. Acronyms like CBC, sure. But if you go around ordering things like CT Head And Body With Oral And IV Contrast, people are going to think you have a really inflated sense of self-importance. As though every word that procedes from your pen Is The Word Of The Almighty: Nursing Staff To Guaiac All Stool And Report Flatus. This Is No Drill. LOL SBH > >>Test ordering is always capitalized thus "Gallium Scan". << > > Please see above where the guy talked about "the normal distribution of > the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect > any abnormality," Does that look like a test order to you? If so, > don't go into nursing. I won't I am a clinical laboratory scientist that has to interpret what nurses can't read in the orders for lab work. I am sick and tired and pissed at sloopy a.s doctors who don't know how to write. When contacted to clarify they act as though they are orders from God who instead of speak in tongues are written in tongues. The first letter of the word is in capital when referring to lab tests. In the literature the same is true. ALT is not alt in any literature I have seen. They should just print instead of hand writing. > Anyway, the capitalization of all words in tests is not a standardized > thing. The first letter of orders, yes. Acronyms like CBC, sure. But if > you go around ordering things like CT Head And Body With Oral And IV And is not a test. The test should stand out and any descriptions as part of a sentence in lower case. > Contrast, people are going to think you have a really inflated sense of > self-importance. As though every word that procedes from your pen Is > The Word Of The Almighty: Surgeons and The Almighty are one and the same for some doctors who think nurses are stupid in not being able to read orders. It is a matter of being able to read the word. Capital letters are more easily readable compared to lower case letters or hand written long hand. Letters are smaller and reading o's from a to not being able to read the whole word at all. If anything, long hand should be outlawyed and they should make use of big crayons. Not to mention abbreviations which is a different pain in the a.s story. With pharmacy they have eliminated any of that crap and it is only a matter of time with other areas. No hand written orders should be allowed. > Nursing Staff To Guaiac All Stool And Report Flatus. This Is No Drill. > > LOL > > SBH 1115838511.989048.8170@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > >>Test ordering is always capitalized thus "Gallium Scan". << > Please see above where the guy talked about "the normal distribution of > the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect > any abnormality," Does that look like a test order to you? If so, > don't go into nursing. >>I won't I am a clinical laboratory scientist that has to interpret what nurses can't read in the orders for lab work. I am sick and tired and pissed at sloopy a.s doctors who don't know how to write. When contacted to clarify they act as though they are orders from God who instead of speak in tongues are written in tongues. The first letter of the word is in capital when referring to lab tests. In the literature the same is true. ALT is not alt in any literature I have seen. << COMMENT: ALT is an acroynm. Did you read what I wrote about acronyms? The word gallium is not an acronym. Nor is gallium scan. >>They should just print instead of hand writing. Agree with you there. Cursive writing is a waste of time for everybody and should be banned from education. It's worse than useless. It was invented so as not to cause blotting when you picked up a quill dipped in ink. It's killed many people since, and it's outlived the quill. Like the fonts designed to give you maximal readability in a manual typewriter (pica, courier, etc), it's outlived the reason for its existance. > Anyway, the capitalization of all words in tests is not a standardized > thing. The first letter of orders, yes. Acronyms like CBC, sure. But if > you go around ordering things like CT Head And Body With Oral And IV >>And is not a test. The test should stand out and any descriptions as part of a sentence in lower case. << COMMENT: It **IS** a test!!. As much a gallium scan. A test doesn't need to be a BLOOD test! >>It is a matter of being able to read the word. Capital letters are more easily readable compared to lower case letters or hand written long hand. Letters are smaller and reading o's from a to not being able to read the whole word at all. If anything, long hand should be outlawyed and they should make use of big crayons. << Yes, as I've said before, we should teach children how to print and then to type. End it there. Having to use all CAPITAL LETTERS TO COMMUNICATE IS GOING TOO FAR, HOWEVER, AND DEFEATS PART OF YOUR NOBLE PURPOSE. >>Not to mention abbreviations which is a different pain in the a.s story. <<< Hey, you're the one who mentioned ALT. Do *you* want to write all this stuff out every time you use it? SBH > > >>To read a nuclear medicine scan, you first have to know normal > > anatomy, then [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > make people think it is a descriptive sentence and not separate tests. The > blocking of the letters make it readable. And if *you* want to drive someone crazy, misspell words like "write" by spelling it "right" when you're acting like you're some kind of wonderful authority on everything. > And if *you* want to drive someone crazy, misspell words like "write" > by spelling it "right" when you're acting like you're some kind of > wonderful authority on everything. Only a doctor can do that and I am not a doctor so what I do has limited impact on others. I can't mistreat anybody without getting fired. Guess what, who fires doctors? I have been called every profanity their is by a doctor when I was following simple policy and procedures only for the doctor to be nice and friendly when speaking to a pathologist about it. Anybody that deals with doctors and disputes knows all about that. If you want to take the doctors side on that then let it happen to you when they lie about what you said and then you might think twice. >>If you want to drive somebody crazy then hand right it out long hand and make people think it is a descriptive sentence and not separate tests. The blocking of the letters make it readable. << COMMENT: Ideally this is done by having the notation "Tests to be done" in the chart, followed by one test per line in the chart (with indents where tests are too long to go on one line), and having each test preceded by a circled number. Gallium scan often has gallium capitalized because gallium is the first word on the line (or should be). But the element gallium in English is spelled lower case. Okay? SBH And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the doctor on the TV series "House". That could be the only explanation for such rudeness. > And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the > doctor on the TV series "House". That could be the only explanation > for such rudeness. Hey, it's a popular TV show. Obviously, all physicians should emulate Dr. House's approach. HMc <<Hey, it's a popular TV show. Obviously, all physicians should emulate Dr. House's approach. << Started a long time ago by Dirty Harry with his own chief. "Here's a six-pointed suppository for you." SBH > > And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the > > doctor on the TV series "House". That could be the only explanation > > for such rudeness. > > Hey, it's a popular TV show. Obviously, all physicians should emulate Dr. > House's approach. Some do and that is why nurses don't want to call them up and clarify orders and want the lab to do that. They treat the nurses like sh.t and the lab when they could have simply been more clear on orders. > HMc >>And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the doctor on the TV series "House". That could be the only explanation for such rudeness. << COMMENT: House--- ah, a fun show. Full of medical mistakes, but enjoyable to see a clinician kick butt occassionally. In the real world, good clinicians are trained to roll over and bark on command, and if they won't, they're out of there. Of course then patients die and hospitals get sued, but nobody seems to care about that. They have their illusions, and their supply of money to cover is limitless. Dr. House is not a real doctor-- he just plays one on TV. As noted, real doctors who acted like Dr. House wouldn't last a day. However, I myself am not functioning as a real doctor here on the net. I'm just giving you my free opinion, take it or leave it. You get what you pay for. Therefore, since this is a bit of an artificial world, I can play Dr. House where needed. That is one of the pleasures of the net, however small. SBH > >>And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > sued, but nobody seems to care about that. They have their illusions, > and their supply of money to cover is limitless. I have never seen a doctor roll over and bark on command when dealing with a nurse and allied health professionals. What hospital does that happen in. Income generating doctors such as open heart docs tell the administration what to do. They can do what ever they want. Administration is afraid of them. > Dr. House is not a real doctor-- he just plays one on TV. As noted, > real doctors who acted like Dr. House wouldn't last a day. However, I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > SBH > And you must be vying for the understudy position for the part of the > doctor on the TV series "House". That could be the only explanation > for such rudeness. I am not in a position of power in the hospital and am hired by the hospital. I answer to my immediate boss and anyone can file a complaint with my boss including about my messspiled words. I have to take every rude and obscene comment by a doctor and can not do so in return. I can get in big trouble for it and nothing will happen to the doctor. Not an even playing field. I didn't know that Steve could not speak for himself. Nice to have you speak for the doctors who can not defend themselves. Is it normal for your liver on the second day to be brighter than the rest of the internal organs? I would assume so sinvce it filters all your blood but I am not sure. On a Gallium scan are lymp nodes supposed to show up even if they are not cancerous? When a lympthnode is cancerous, does it look different > To read a nuclear medicine scan, you first have to know normal anatomy, then > the normal distribution of the radiotracer (in this case Gallium) to detect [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Just curious. > On a Gallium scan are lymp nodes supposed to show up even if they are > not cancerous? Lymph nodes can be infected with bugs or cancer so that in itself is not specific. It only tells you where the problem is located and then they can take out a lymph node and actually look at it. That is if it is a lymph node and not some other abscess site. Hang in there. > When a lympthnode is cancerous, does it look different > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > > > > > Just curious. !Hell NO! >>Is it normal for your liver on the second day to be brighter than the rest of the internal organs? I would assume so sinvce it filters all your blood but I am not sure. << Gallium is handled by the body somewhat like iron. So it's picked up the reticulendothelial system of the liver as though it was iron, to be stored. > I had an injection of gallium and my first scan 6 hours later. It > showed all my internal organs. The nurse said tomorrow I might be able > to see the lymph nodes. The way they postiion me I can see the monitor. > Is there a way to tell where a problem is or a cancer is? I recently had a similar type of scan, but mine was an indium-111 scan, where white blood cells were 'tagged' with a radioactive isotope and reinjected, and the next day 'pictures' were taken. I, too, could see the monitor once it cleared my head, but having no training at all in reading and/or interpreting the resulting images, there was no way for me to tell if the images showed anything abnormal. The doctor who ordered the test will give you the results as soon as s/he gets them, and I hope that like me, yours will be completely normal.  Signature"Did Father shoot him? I will eat Grandfather for dinner." - Helen Keller, on learning of the death of her grandfather >> I had an injection of gallium and my first scan 6 hours later. It >> showed all my internal organs. The nurse said tomorrow I might be able [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > ordered the test will give you the results as soon as s/he gets them, > and I hope that like me, yours will be completely normal. I visit this newsgroup in order to learn something. I have a background in physics and even nuleonics and x-rays, but I am not specifically knowledgible on the details of radiology. It would be a big help to know what is actually being injected, for what purpose, and how does this injected substance to its medical job. I am pretty sure that gallium metal was not injected even though it is a liquid at body temperature. ;=) Ah! I forgot. In a typical imaging facility, the room is so cold that the metal would freeze out. :=) Bill > >> I had an injection of gallium and my first scan 6 hours later. It > >> showed all my internal organs. The nurse said tomorrow I might be able [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > physics and even nuleonics and x-rays, but I am not specifically > knowledgible on the details of radiology. If I were able to explain te finer points of radiology in detail, I would doing so for money at a university. > It would be a big help to know what is actually being injected, for what > purpose, and how does this injected substance to its medical job. google.com Signature"Did Father shoot him? I will eat Grandfather for dinner." - Helen Keller, on learning of the death of her grandfather > It would be a big help to know what is actually being injected, for > what purpose, and how does this injected substance to its medical job. > I am pretty sure that gallium metal was not injected even though it is > a liquid at body temperature. ;=) Ah! I forgot. In a typical imaging > facility, the room is so cold that the metal would freeze out. :=) The most common use of Ga-67 is as a tracer for infection imaging. It can also be tagged to a pharmaceutical which is used for prostate imaging (Prostascint). Most protocols call for injection of 5-7 mCi Ga-67 with imaging 24-48 hours later. Generally in nuclear medicine all radioisotopes are tagged to a pharmaceutical which localizes or is metabolized in a particular organ system. With a few exceptions, radioisotopes are hardly ever used without being tagged to something. Signature--------------------------------------------------------------------- Eugene Mah, M.Sc., DABR eugenem@ix.netcom.com Medical Physicist maheug@musc.edu "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother http://radinfo.musc.edu/~eugenem/blog/ me." - Winnie the Pooh http://www.netcom.com/~eugenem/ ICQ 3113529 PGP KeyID = 0x1F9779FD or 0xE37A1591 PGP key available on request O- --------------------------------------------------------------------- > The most common use of Ga-67 is as a tracer for infection imaging. > It can also be tagged to a pharmaceutical which is used for [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > organ system. With a few exceptions, radioisotopes are hardly > ever used without being tagged to something. Thank you for the reply. Knowing that it is Ga-67, I was able to Google and find: http://imaging.mallinckrodt.com/_Attachments/PackageInserts/Gallium%20PI.pdf There was plenty of interesting information there. Bill Who got shot, Grandfatehr or another? 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