CEA-Scan Helps Find Distant Metastasis in a Patient with Primary Colorectal Cancer and a Suspected Artifact on CT

These CEA-Scan images are of a 72-year-old female complaining of constipation and tiredness accompanied by anemia. Colonoscopy showed a lesion 20-cm from the anal verge and left-sided diverticulosis. The CT scan showed the lesions seen with the colonoscopy, an aortocaval node and what appeared to be a volume-averaging artifact in the right upper quadrant that may have been caused by respiration. SPECT images with CEA-Scan confirmed all the lesions found with the CT and colonoscopy, including the primary tumor (image block 1). CEA-Scan also showed uptake in the same right upper quadrant area as the suspected artifact on CT (image block 2) clearly demonstrating that the density seen on CT was indeed a lesion and not an artifact. Both findings were surgically confirmed. This case is an example of how CEA-Scan can provide additional information and helps find metastasis often not easily appreciated with other modalities.

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