My Liver Cancer Blog

my first blog, a way for me to process my experience of being diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma

about

I am a professor at a Canadian university. I’m married, have close relationships with my family, love my 2 dogs, love travel, and enjoy hiking (but day hikes only – not really into the hut-to-hut thing). I really hope I can get through this and do some major hikes again in the future. Thank god I also love reading novels (literary prize winners, but also espionage, detective, and sometimes Sci-fi). And thank god I live in an era of excellent tv. And thank god I love writing. There are many things I can still do that I love, even having cancer and being more home-bound than I would like to be.

If you’re new, I recommend starting with How I Found Out.

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Scan #4, or CT scan reports are crazy-making

So, I received the report about CT scan #4, which was done on March 29, and I think the take-home message is that the tumour size is stable and has not significantly changed since the previous scan, which was done Feb. 22. (In fact we didn’t even really need to do scan #4, but did it anyway just so there is clear evidence that if the tumour shrinks it will be due to the Zeno, which I start next week, not anything else). The take-home message for me is that these radiological reports make me crazy. I’ll just quote from them to show you why.

Report from scan #2 done on Nov. 4, 2025 after 6 cycles of chemo-immunotherapy: “There is a central biliary tumour present…it measures 9.7 x 7.0 cm compared to a previous of 10.3 x 8.”

Report from the next scan, scan #3, done Feb. 22, 2026 after 8 cycles of chemo-immunotherapy and 2 cycles of only immunotherapy: “Again seen is a central cholangiocarcinoma near the biliary hilum measured…at 7.8 x 5.2 cm compared to a previous of of 8.1 x 6.8 cm, showing some interval decrease in size.”

(Right now I’m hoping you are going, “wait, what? what was the previous measurement?”)

Report from the next scan, scan #4, done March 29, 2026: “No significant change in the central cholangiocarcinoma at the biliary hilum, measuring up to 8.5 x 5.7 cm, previously 8.2 x 5.6 cm when remeasured, and mildly decreased from 8.9 x 6.8 cm when remeasured on the more remote prior CT from Nov. 2025.”

Again, wait, what? What was the previous measurement? What was the measurement in November?

I keep reminding myself that (1) it shrunk, (2) now it’s stable, (3) I’m feeling great recently. But the fact that each report revises the previous report’s measurements makes me want to pull my hair out (though I definitely won’t do that since it’s finally starting to grow back more thickly and less like baby hair)..

This is what google has to say about this issue:

That’s all. I felt the need to put this out there (1) so I can vent and (2) to correct any misconception you might have that reading CT scans is an exact science.

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3 responses to “Scan #4, or CT scan reports are crazy-making”

  1. Andrew Lewis Avatar
    Andrew Lewis

    I would be interested to hear what explanation the docs give for the variations in their summaries. Don’t they look at the previous notes?

    Good job on feeling great, by the way!

    a

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    It’s absolutely so confusing when they refer to an old scan with a new measurement. I find it happens often when the comparison scan was done at another institution, like they’re dubious of the other institution and remeasure the prior to be sure. -Shane M

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    1. Helagrl Avatar
      Helagrl

      Weirdly, the reports after scans 2 and 3 were done by the same guy. So he is revising the measurements of his own previous report. Very confusing!

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