PET AND CT machines

[Pumpkin]

I understand that medical imaging has it’s limitations,  but are the machines that do these scans the same at every hospital in Brisbane or does any place have a later and greater machine able to provide better imaging?

[timbaker]

You might want to consider a PSMA PET scan which is newer and gives a more detailed scan but is more expensive. I use one in Soutjport on the Gold Coast and I’m sure you’d find them in most capital cities 

[Kezza2]

The public systems tends to have the latest machines from what I am told, but QScan also has new modern machines.  The tracer is a different story - depends on the facilities for making it. RBWH make their own, but a lot of others use a different tracer.  You probably need to ask the facility you are thinking of using what tracer they use, although I thing the result from the different tracers is pretty similar.

[Patrick Turner]

16 hours ago, Pumpkin said:

does any place have a later and greater machine able to provide better imaging?

This is a good question, but I had my first PsMa PET Ga68 PET / CT scan in 2016, which was able to see soft tissue Pca mets in lymph nodes only 2mm in dia and maybe 2 years before anything else could. Not only that, the location of mets was then possible, co-ordinates were then available for beam radiation using Calypso SBRT so this made this RT much better aimed than before, so beam size could be reduced to a minimum for less collateral damage to surrounding healthy tissues. I found out about all this when I was first patient in Oz to have salvation RT to my PG at Epworth in Melbourne where I had had primary treatment of standard EBRT in Canberra Hospital in 2010 which did much less to kill my PG cells that was expected by doctors. 

I recall first place in Oz to get Calypso was Epworth, and first place to get PsMa Ga68 scans was Bridge Rd imaging located near Epworth. If the full truth were to be known about my Pca with perfect scans that have not yet been developed, I bet my Pca in PG and the first mets might have been seen clearly for first time very many years before 2009 when I was diagnosed with a real bad Gleason 9 with a low Psa 6 which was obviously diagnosed too late, costing maybe $200,000 to treat so far from Medicare and my pocket.

Had PsMa Ga8 scans as they were in 2016 been around in 2008, I may have shown massively clear picture of Pca in PG. But maybe would not have spotted any mets. So If I'd had a perfectly successful RP in 2008, or maybe 2005, my Psa would have gone very low, and stayed low, to indicate I had got the darn thing in time, and there would not have been any need for ADT or RT so I'd have recovered well without incontinence or ED.

But any mets that could not have been seen in 2005 would have grown and prospered without ADT and Psa would have risen to tell everyone I was back at square 1. I don't know how many men and their doctors think they have got the RP done early enough, and without leaving a single cell of prostate tissue behind, which is always likely to become cancerous given enough time. 

So, just how perfect would you like the scans to be? What could ever see the first Pca cell to begin away from the PG? Is it possible that some Pca develops in many men with microscopic mets being seeded  elsewhere, then being killed by our immune system, and then when the number of mets goes over a threshold the immune system cannot cope and the mets survive control by IS and these live on to kill a man despite the PG being removed early enough.

Scans or blood tests may never be able to accurately see presence of any cancer when the level is extremely low.

But if a man were able to have his PG removed at say 40, after he's produced all the children he wants, and probably well before any microscopic Pca has formed anywhere, and all well before say 65, then its highly likely he may have no future Pca problem so there would be no need to wish for a perfect scan which seems highly unlikely to ever be devised. 

Most blokes are horrified by the idea of having their PG removed because it seems to be extremely important for a bloke's continued sexuality and the happiness of himself and his partner.

But I really don't know just how badly a man's sexuality is diminished by a perfect RP where all nerves were spared, bearing in mind, what goes on within the PG gives pleasure during sex. Would the generation of "love hormones" like oxytocin occur? these complex issues help us bond with partners. How many men or women under 40 would f agree that any relationship was possible without sex? Not many, IMHO. But if Pca is / was heavily present in all the bloke's relatives, then the earlier he gets the darn thing cut out, the better.

Meanwhile, I have survived nearly 10 years since diagnosis with Psa 0.57 and No 6 PsMa Ga68 scan report says my bone met sites are healing up after the 4 x Lu177 shots between last Nov and May.

And despite what docs said 8 weeks ago about the MRI and Xrays showed for a hip joint with 2 pea sized mets in femur and pelvis nearby hip joint, I have been now able to cycle again, no pains at all, and I didn't expect this.

Today on Radio National I heard Professor Paul Davies give us a lecture on what cancer is. He thinks its DNA that evolved  3 billion years ago, well before the era of Oxygen being abundant in our atmosphere, which came about by photosynthesis in plant life evolution. The 3 billion year old DNA had other layers of control imposed upon it, and if those layers are disturbed, then uncontrolled cell growth occurs.

He thought that a diet of low carbohydrates to minimize blood glucose PLUS sessions in hypobaric chamber in with O2 level could do a lot to control cancer growth. He said nothing of a cure, but a lot about how much of our DNA is able to mutate to avoid change in availability of cell nourishment or presence of chemo to kill cancer cells when they divide to form more new cancer cells. In other words, much cancer therapy makes the cancer mutate to beat anything doctors throw at it.

I have no idea what he'd think about how I have had Aunty Lutetia conduct miniature atomic bombing of my Pca cells and thus no idea what sort of Worst Type Zombie Mutants the Lu177 have thus encouraged to develop to prevent any future Doctor's Potion being able to kill.

But at least the Lu177 is targeted, so it gathers at tumor sites. If would be nice if chemo could be similarly targeted to make the doses given to us much lower, get gather at the tumour site in overwhelmingly large amounts to ensure the chemo worked, instead of giving us disappointing performance all too often, with lingering side effects. 

But what I did experience during last 2 months was to meet a single lady of 40, in my local café, an extremely unlikely event, ever, since most ppl are my age. I talked to her for hours. Turned out she believes she has healing powers and feels the presence of God, and Jesus, and I don't dispute this, although the theology invented around God so far really is all quite inadequate to describe what may be something far bigger than any of us or even Jesus. Anyway, she performed a healing prayer ceremony for my hip after I'd eventually admitted a few health bothers during our conversations.

Possibly, healing may be induced by rare individuals where they merely consider the idea of the problem and request it be fixed. But I thought that if I ever cycled again it would be a miracle. Now 99% of ppl who proclaim they can heal are so often con merchants needing $$$$. But not this lady. I saw her again later, and she repeated a prayer, and there was no way I could be a fool to not accept such good will, bearing in mind most all other ladies I've met with view to marriage when I was under 50 turned out to have zero ideas on love for anything, let alone any desire to commit to anything or anyone, even to themselves. This lady was a visitor from Canada. 

I leave this open for you to all of you to chuckle about. But I am glad to have met enough good docs and nurses and in a timely manner to let me live this long, so I think I'm doing  better than maybe 6 billion other ppl on Earth, and why I was given this opportunity is Miss Terrey. 

Patrick Turner. 

 

[stevecavill]

The machines are basically the same.  There are different tracers which are not always available everywhere. PSMA PET using a Gallium tracer is the most recent and probably the best right now, but it's not covered by medicare.  So typically about $700.  Some public hospitals may cover it as part of their research program because it is very new.

 

I think the big difference is in the skill of the radiologist who plans the test and interprets the results.

 

Steve