Pet Scan Melanoma
why do a pet scan in stage 3 melanoma instead of just removing remaining tissue and nearby nodes?
First of all, great question. I’m a medical student and it was hard to pin down a good reason. Here is what I have to add.
Since stage 3 already has 1-3 positive lymph nodes. It has already had micro or macrometastases so the PET scan is to find out if it is actually Stage 4. It would suck to think it is 3 and find out that it has spread beyond nearby nodes and would have had a better prognosis if caught early. I know that melanoma can also undergo hematogenous spread and thus a lymphatic investigation may be limited in scope.
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PET/CT uncovers melanomas missed by exam.(Clinical Rounds): An article from: Skin & Allergy News $9.95 This digital document is an article from Skin & Allergy News, published by Thomson Gale on August 1, 2007. The length of the article is 610 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Citation DetailsTitle: PET/CT un… |
Tags: melanoma
