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Medical Forum / General / General / May 2005CT scan question
Got chest ct scan and it said everything is normal. How could that be that a gallium scan showed a 2 to 3 cm area near my diahapfram and left lung but the chest ct scan did not show anything? Could it be the gallium spot was too low for the chest ct scan and I should have had an abdomninal ct instead? Surely the doctor or hospital would not have made that mistake would they? Look, we don't know anything about you. How old are you? Do you have cancer? Does somebody think you might? WHY did you get the *(&&%ing gallium scan? What are they looking for? Gallium just goes to sites of inflammation. In looking for cancer, these days it's largely been supplanted by combined PET/CT. But it still has a few uses. SBH I am 33 I dont have cancer I know of. I have a fever of unknown origion. (Low grade). Ah. Well, that's a good use for gallium. Next you may get an indium scan. It's a bit more specific for infection, rather than just inflammation. It allows doctors to follow where your white cells go, if what you have is an abscess. I don't know why the area of gallium uptake isn't obvious on your CT. It's possible it's a diffuse area which isn't a "thing" like a node which has a different density which is detectable on CT. And remember, not everywhere gallium goes is pathological. It collects in any organ that stores iron, and the patterns it makes are not always nice and pretty. Even in healthy people. This is a nice diagnostic problem. Maybe you can make the radiology people earn their money (for once). But it's unlikely you're going to get much help with a fever of unknown origin, on the internet. SBH Would the Gallium have shown cancer if I had it in my body? Is the indium where they take your own blood and inject it back into you? If that "spot" was cancer, would the ct have detected it? Is it possile they scanned the wrong place with the ct scan? The gallium scan showed that hot spot "around my left lung next to my diaghapram. My doctor then ordered just a chest ct scan. I wonder how low the chest ct goes? What organs does the chest ct show? Again thanks for all you very useful information! >>Would the Gallium have shown cancer if I had it in my body? << Not necessarily. It's not very sensitive, and it's not very specific. >>Is the indium where they take your own blood and inject it back into you?<< Yes. If that "spot" was cancer, would the ct have detected it? No. CT detects masses or lumps of tissue. It can't tell what they are. If you see one, there's really no way to tell what it is but take it out or stick a needle into it to take some out. >>Is it possile they scanned the wrong place with the ct scan? The gallium scan showed that hot spot "around my left lung next to my diaghapram. My doctor then ordered just a chest ct scan. I wonder how low the chest ct goes? What organs does the chest ct show? << Should be all the way down to competely below the diaphragm, so certainly low enough. At this point the docs are probably stumped as to where it went. But this is a common problem. Most nuclear scans are pretty 2 dimentional, and it's often hard to line them up with CT results. SBH So does it mean that spot is gone or the ct just did not see it? Where should I go from here? My fevers have stopped for the last 4 days praise God! In the back of my mind I am still worried about that spot! <<Where should I go from here?<< To your doctor? |
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