Neuroradiologist Update, Dec 2015

December 2015 - My bishop has an uncle that is a neuro radiologist. I got the chance to speak with him directly, which was really neat. Normally I just hear what the radiologists said through another doctor. He had clearly studied my films in depth, and took a good amount of time explaining things to me--such a blessing! He agrees that my brain lesion could not be MS. He also agrees that there are probably two things going on --the lesion and a separate condition. He agrees that the brain lesion is growing, and stated that he feels it is either a low grade glioma (slow growing tumor) or a vascular malformation, specifically a capillary type malformation, which is a sub-type of AVM. He says that in his opinion, the vascular malformation is more likely, but its a very unusual lesion, so its hard to say with certainty. He said the enhancement should be growing it if was a glioma, but its more of the swelling and scarring in my brain that seems to be growing, which he believes makes a vascular lesion more likely. He said that even if its a vascular lesion, we will need to consider treatment (I didn't know that). He said that a vascular lesion like this could hemmorage and cause permanent damage because of where it's located. I'm not actually sure what those treatment decisions would look like, but he said that would be something to discuss with my docs when we get a diagnosis. He also said that in his opinion, he would NOT biopsy this lesion, because if it was a vascular lesion and we tried to biopsy, we could cause a hemmorage. He suggested we start with an MR Spectroscopy and CT Angiogram (both on the list from my neurologist! Smart docs!) He said if the CT Angiogram is not conclusive, we should do a traditional Angiogram (where they put a catheter into the vessels and send it to the problem spot for imaging). He said to keep in touch with further results, and was very helpful. It was really amazing to talk to a neuroradiologist, and grateful for this opinion. I will keep fighting to avoid the biopsy.