Today's CT/PET scan showed substantial improvement in the primary tumors in Lisa's lung and central chest, meaning it's all a lot smaller. If you recall from earlier posts, some "activity glow" was expected even if the tumor is completely killed off, just because of the latent inflammation still there from the radiation and biopsy surgeries. So that's all good.
However, there are some suspect "spots" in Lisa's iliac (hip), femur and sacrum (the large bone at the base of the spine above the tailbone) that need further examination via MRI (we're still working to get that scheduled as soon as possible). The spots show "glow" in the PET portion of the scan where there was none previously, but show nothing in the CT portion, which means that they may be just inflammation from all of the walking and stairs that Lisa did during our trip, and that's certainly what we're praying for. However, the spot in the head of the femur is at the site of the one found originally, and now has a glow measurement (in what's called "SUV" or sugar uptake value) five times what it was back in late January. This is a big concern, even though it doesn't show up on the CT. An MRI will tell us for sure.
The video below is white-black inverted, and the high contrast dark spots show the high SUV areas of concern which will be closely examined in the upcoming MRI.
