Good Pet Scan Results

Had a PET scan today, and the news was pretty good. After my last PET scan in September showed some regrowth, this scan after receiving one round of Ontak as treatment showed a reversal of the cancer activity. My doctor didn't have the full radiologist's report yet, but shared that there were 7 lesions of activity in September, and that 3 of those have completely disappeared. The other 4 lesions have all shrunk considerably as well.

The one area that isn't a complete positive is that the main tumor mass looked to be about the same size, if not slightly bigger. Of course I'd want to hear that this area shrunk as well, but it has to be taken into consideration that I didn't start Ontak until three weeks after my PET scan. Therefore the tumor mass could have been larger when I started the treatment, since we didn't have a true baseline.

So now that we have that information, I'll be starting my next round of Ontak tommorow. Its good going into this next round that the drug works. Its also nice to know that the doctors will be increasing the level of Ontak I'll be receiving, so hopefully I'll have an even better response. My doctor thinks 3 or 4 rounds of Ontak are likely, and he wants to take a scan after each round to follow it closely.

So my family and I are very happy with the results. The only thing bothering me now is some apparent infection in my mouth. I've had flareups of the GVHD in my mouth before, but this appears to be something else going on. It could be from the flu I had a few weeks ago, but I'm past the nasty flu symptoms at least. My energy is back up, I'm not coughing and blowing my nose constantly, and everything else is decent.