Beyond clinical assessment, your oncology team will use imaging and a range of pathology tests to determine the extent of cancer and its characteristics.
IMAGING Imaging involves taking pictures of what is going on inside your body. Imaging tests are very important tools that your oncology team will use to diagnose and monitor Stage IV melanoma. These tests are helpful to look for and evaluate metastases. Here we provide a brief overview of some of these imaging tests. Computed tomography (CT) or computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan is an imaging scanning technique that uses X-rays from different angles to make a 3-dimensional picture of the inside of your body. CT scans can be used with or without a material called contrast. Contrast materials are substances that help make certain body areas or structures stand out. This helps make the pictures the radiologist sees easier to interpret. We can think of CT scans as helping us find tumors and figure out their structure. Positron emission tomography (PET) scan is a test that uses a radioactive drug (a tracer). The tracer is injected into a vein and settles in parts of the body that are using a lot of sugar to grow. We can think of this as testing the function (activity) of cells. An area that “lights up” on a PET scan might be an area that has cancer or an area that is inflamed from arthritis or injury. Because this test might pick up other things that are not cancer, it is often used together with a CT scan as described below.
Stage IV Melanoma Treatment Options • Making the Decision That’s Right for You Copyright © 2022 AIM at Melanoma Foundation and Terranova Medica, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Document Released January 26, 2022.
56
