Tomorrow we go to Overlook hospital for a PET scan. What's that I hear you ask?
"While some imaging scans such as CT and MRI isolate organic anatomic changes in the body, PET scanners, like SPECT are capable of detecting areas of molecular biology detail (even prior to anatomic change). The PET scanner does this via the use of radiolabelled molecular probes that have different rates of uptake, depending on the type and function of tissue involved. The changing of regional blood flow in various anatomic structures (as a measure of the injected positron emitter) can be visualized and relatively quantified with a PET scan."
It works sort of like a CT scan or MRI but instead of producing static images of a localized area, it produces 3D images of the entire body and instead of bones or organs, it shows ACTIVITY.
Here's an example:
They inject you with radioactive materials (literally) like carbon-11 (an isotope of carbon) and see where it goes. Remember an isotope is a form of an element with the same atomic number (number of protons) but a different atomic mass (number of protons+neutrons). So without the right number of protons the thing decays.
Carbon-11 decays in 20 mins so it's not really viable to use in the test. They'll likely use Fluorine-18 which has a half-life of about 110mins. That means it takes about 2hours for half the amount of stuff to decay. As it decays it gives off positrons that are picked up by the big circular thing around you. Ironic that when you have cancer they test you with something that could give you cancer.
Blah blah blah, long story short, you have GOT to be on time for this type of test. Otherwise the isotope will have decayed before they shoot you up with it.
The Fluorine-18 will be mistaken for glucose and taken up by glucose-absorbing cells. These are typically your brain, your liver or cancer. The cancer will basically light up.
The test reveals the areas in your body that have active cancer growth. We're hoping it's just the primary tumor in the colon and the tumors in the liver. We won't really be able to tell if the tumors have shrunken from this test as we don't have one to compare it to. We won't get the results until Monday. Tonight Karen has to drink some jars of fluids to prep. Here's a link to the exact group we'll meet with [LINK].
Long story short, this is amazing technology that can really give us some good information around how to treat K. I doubt we would get access to this advanced technology in my native Ireland or even in some other parts of the U.S.
Fingers crossed for a good result.