No MRI?

What areas did they tell you will be covered in the CT scan? Mine include chest, abdomen, and pelvis. But, I see no reason why they would not include the neck in yours. I would definitely ask about that.

It seems that the standard of care (perhaps driven by insurance restrictions) is they don’t routinely do a brain MRI unless CNS symptoms are present. My wife was stage 2c in December of 2016. They did a PET scan but no MRI. PET was clear. 6 months later she had two brain mets. I’ve always thought the larger brain met might have been detectable if a MRI had been done in December of 2016, but several doctors told me that MRI is not normally done in the absence of symptoms indicating brain involvement.

Hi Lucy, Thank you for posting. My husband is in a very similar situation to yours. He was diagnosed with melanoma on June 19th of this year (2109). In late July, he had a tumor (also not thought to be primary) removed from his parotid gland (main salivary gland) together with 51 lymph nodes from his neck, 2 of which were involved. He underwent daily radiotherapy for 6 weeks, and is now on adjuvant immunotherapy (Opdivo) for a year. He hasn’t had any scans whatsoever since his surgery and will be having CT scans done on Jan. 8th. We were assuming they were to be done on his whole body, but now after reading some of this forum’s posts, I am not too sure. I am going to call the hospital to find out what is actually scheduled, but before doing so, I wanted to arm myself with some knowledge as to what he should ideally be getting. Some people seem to get MRI’s, others PET scans, and still others like yourself CT scans. I will be posting about this matter, so in case you want more information, I just wanted to let you know so you could keep tabs on any responses I myself get. I am very nervous about my husband’s scans on Jan. 8th, given that they will be the first since his surgery and I am praying fervently that they will be clear. Thank you for posting; examples of cases similar to my husband’s that are positive are giving me much needed hope at the moment that there really is a good chance his scans will be clear. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Affected

Lucy, I had a scalp primary plus neck lymph node involvement (excision + two partial dissections) and a brain met (gamma knife, December 2018). Of my (roughly) 10 brain MRIs, only one interpreter has even mentioned my neck involvement. My oncologist says CT/PETCT is the scan of choice for the neck. Glad you are asking, and I hope you get all of the testing and support you need without a fight. In the meantime, hooray for the two clean PET/MRIs!
Lisa