Interesting Abstract!

Came across this abstract into CT/PET and diagnosis of large vessel Vasculitis, it also looks at how useful it is to predict relapse.

Unfortunately can’t seem to access the entire article as would have liked to know what it said regarding Prednisolone and whether it masked CT/ PET findings

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...

[Gaijin]

I had a PET CT recently to rule out "aortitis". I don't see the rheumi for the results till the 13th, but my endocrinologist said the result was negative. It seems like a waste to do such an expensive test with so much radiation and not check for other pathologies. I wonder if any amount of Prednisone interferes or just high dosis, like with Temporal biopsy. I tapered down to 6.25 for the test despite having really bad symptoms. I didn't feel any worse from tapering and no better at 15mgs either. I have been diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. I thought that PET CT could image many pathologies, maybe I'm just being naive.

[Hidden in reply to Gaijin]

Hi,

It’s commonly used for cancer as it can detect very small tumours ( less than 1mm ). Much depends on the way they see the machine up and what radioactive tracer they use.

I am not sure that dropping the dose of pred temporarily for the PET sufficiently deals with the problem of pred suppressing the PET signal.