Please help Doc discovered Mom has liver cyst , Now being sent for chest scan...Is this the normal procedure?
Question:
My question is how can they know it's a cyst and not a tumor? Is this serious? Do they normally run a chest scan after finding a Liver Cyst?
Answers:
The chest scan (presumably a CT) may be to check her lungs for cancer. Lung cancer can metastasize (spread) to the liver, causing tumors with the appearance of "cysts."
Don't worry too much, though, because liver cysts are usually benign (no big deal).
***EDIT***
The CT can't really determine what a mass (something that shouldn't be there) is made of. If the mass is in the liver, an ultrasound should be able to determine whether it is solid (made up of some kind of tissue) or cystic (filled with fluid) or complex (mix of solid and cystic parts).
Cysts are usually not a big deal. Solid masses are more worrisome, especially if ultrasound shows a lot of blood flow going to it.
But to really determine what the mass is, the doctors will have to perform a biopsy--a procedure where they stick a needle into the thing, scrape some cells off of it, and examine them under a microscope. This should tell them if a mass is benign or malignant.
the ct scan is probable the best way to see how big the cyst is and where it's placed etc so just wait for the test results and it will probably be fine
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