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Kidney Cancer Diagnosis 

 

Kidney Cancer Diagnosis 

Here are a number of procedures your Health Care Provider may perform in to determine if you have kidney cancer:

 

Physical Exams: The doctor checks your general health and also may feel your abdomen.

Urine specimen samples: The urine is checked for blood and malignant cells.

Blood Tests: Blood samples are taken, send to the lab and among other indicators checked for significantly levels of Creatinine.

CT-Scans/CAT-Scans: The patient gets injected with a dye. Then an x-ray machine takes a series of pictures of the kidneys and their surroundings.

PET-Scan: The patient drinks a glucose drink and is being injected with a radioactive dye. After waiting for approximately an hour, an x-ray takes pictures of the whole body and essentially checks for distance occurrences of cancerous masses. Click here to read about my PET-Scan experience.

Ultrasound: A device that uses waves that bounce off the kidneys. The information that comes back is being analyzed in a computer and puts out a picture called sonogram in which irregularities can be identified.

Ureteroscopy/Cystoscopy: A small tube with a camera is being inserted through the penis up through the urinary tract and the bladder. With this procedure an urologist is able to determine, whether the cancer is confined in the kidney or has already spread further. Please click here to read up on my Ureteroscopy experience.

 

This is my actual CT-Scan taken on 09-18-2009. It's hard to read though, unless you are a trained professional. Otherwise, all those black spots might scare the hell out of you.........