Test #3: Great News from the MIBG Scan

We spent Friday morning at Children's again, and had a wonderful time. Tessa was a star. She was completely immobilized - wrapped up in blankets like a burrito and then taped to the scanner bed. Her claustrophobic dad had a little trouble breathing just watching her wrapped up like that. But Tess? No problem. Happy as a clam. Besides... she got to watch Cinderella as the scans were being done. I took some pictures with my Treo, and if I ever figure out how to get them off the handheld and onto my computer, I'll put some of them here. There. Here's some.



The good news came when Dr. Gordon called us later in the day. Here's the background information that makes his news into good news. MIBG is short for some crazy-long chemical name that has been manufactured as a radioactive isotope. It is a substance that is taken up by neuroblastoma cells (malignant tumor cells) in the course of their normal metabolic activity. The test involved getting an injection of this radioactive MIBG on Thursday, and then coming back in to be scanned on Friday. If there were any other growths elsewhere in her body, they would have showed up as bright spots on the scan, having collected this MIBG overnight. So any other bright spots on the scan would indicate that the cancer had spread to other locations in her body.

The scans took just under two hours - scanning her feet and legs, hips, chest and arms, and head. The test showed no other growths anywhere else in her body. So it looks like this single tumor in her back is the only one. Going even further into the land of good news was this: Even the tumor we know she has didn't show up on the scan. Since a neuroblastoma tumor would have collected this MIBG stuff and lit up like a Christmas tree, this finding points away from this more malignant form of tumor.

That means that it is more probable than not that Tessa's tumor is a ganglioneuroma, not a neuroblastoma. They still won't know for sure until they take it out and look at it under a microscope. But it looks like it's the "good tumor," the one that is much more benign.

So we're thrilled. Not thrilled that she has a tumor, but thrilled that it looks like a less serious one, that hasn't spread anywhere else in her bones or tissues. While this one tumor has grown into her vertebral column somewhat, it's not near her spinal cord and it looks like when they take it out, it'll be gone for good. Thank you, Lord.

That's where we're at. The next step comes on Tuesday, when all the radiologists and surgeons, together with the oncologists, look at all her test results and images in a single sitting, and then make decisions from there. Joanna and I meet with Dr. Shamburger on Tuesday afternoon, so we'll have another update after that.