We are a four cancer household of two. I have had stage 3 colon cancer and a couple of basal cell carcinomas. The wife has recently had a lumpectomy for breast cancer, stage 1, followed by 15 sessions of radiotherapy. Tomorrow, she has a Positron Emission Tomography {PET} scan to check on the state of play with her multiple myeloma, it will be an 18F – FDG PET scan. The [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose shows sites of hypermetabolism associated with regular cancer or myeloma. It decays by positron emission, an up quark changes to a down quark.

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The annihilation of the emitted positron causes two ~511 keV gamma “rays” emitted at exactly 180 degrees to each other to conserve momentum. The half-life of 18F is around 110 minutes. The drive back from the centre of nuclear medicine is half an hour, we have a smallish Peugeot 207 and it takes place at less than one half life after injection.

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According to what I have read in the scarce literature, this car journey gives me an exposure of ~0.4% of the annual average exposure to radiation.

Perhaps there is a need for more research on what happens when a patient leaves the nuclear medicine centre? There are health and safety assessments for the healthcare practitioners, what about the carers? This is the third journey like this for me. There will be more.

We have an appointment with the radio-oncology specialist and the haematologist week beginning 2^nd December.  We will know a little more about what our immediate future holds by the end of that week….