LRF Video on PET scans

The Lymphoma Research Foundation has posted some nice videos from their October North American Educational Forum on Lymphoma. I've linked to some of LRF's videos before; it's worth checking out their full list.


The LRF's Educational Forum is an annual event geared toward patients and their families, providing up-to-date information about lymphomas of all types in easy-to-understand language. As you can see from the videos from the Forum, the presenters do a nice job of giving the heavy science and then explaining what it all means in simpler language. (I suspect that people who would be attracted to this sort of event probably have a background or an interest in science.)


One of the recently posted videos is on PET scans. I already had an idea of how PET scans work (they pick up glucose metabolism by cells -- cancer cells will eat the sugar faster than normal cells, and the the scan will glow in places where that speed-eating is taking place). But I learned a few things from the video.


I've heard before that the measurement of the glucose metabolism is an SUV score. I have no idea what mine is, because I avoid numbers when I can -- they can be misinterpreted too easily if you're looking for a reason to be depressed. What I learned from the video is that indolent lymphomas have lower SUV scores than aggressive lymphomas, so an SUV score can be an indication of transformation to an aggressive type of lymphoma. Basic stuff, but pretty important. PETs are also able to pick up disease in nodes that are not swollen, or in organs like the spleen, liver, and bone marrow. A regular CAT scan won't necessarily show those things.


PET scans are useful, says the speaker, for initial staging for Follicular NHL, but usually are less useful for later checks on the disease's progression, since a change in staging (that is, finding out that the disease has spread to other nodes or organs) doesn't usually change the course of treatment. That is, an initial PET might show a stage III disease, like mine did -- presence of disease in nodes above and below the diaphragm. If I was found to have progressed to stage IV, say, presence in the bone marrow or spleen, my treatment would still be the same. FNHL tends to react to treatment about the same no matter what the stage. This is why Dr. R only goes with CAT scans for me these days.


A useful video, I think, for some basic, but important, information on PETs. The whole series is great in that way: fairly easy explanations of up-to-date information. I'll talk about the one of Follicular NHL in a few days.