Results of MRI

Today I had a doctor appt at Vanderbilt to find out the results from the MRI. Dr. Peitch, the head pediatric surgeon explained what he thought it could be. He didnt have any real diagnosis yet, as there is no way to tell from ultrasounds and MRI's what something really is, just speculation and things to rule out. Well radiology said in their MRI report that it was a Sequestration. If you google that you'll see that is a piece of displaced lung tissue. That would also include a form of blood supply going to it, and this they did not see. Dr. Peitch seems not to agree with this diagnosis and feels it could be a sequestration but also could be an adrenal hemmerage or an adrenal tumor. Andrenal Hemmerage would be something that just occured while she was very small and is no longer active. This would require no surgery and no further treatments other than watching it. If it is an adrenal tumor, then they would have to remove it and depending on whether or not it was malignant, determine other follow up courses of action. If its a sequestration, they would have to do surgery at our convenience, to remove it just because it could get an infection later on in life, because its a piece of tissue.

So there are still no real answers, but a few things were ruled out. Its not Wilm's Tumor, as that would be a kidney mass, and they have determined it is not on the kidney. The kidney is functional and normal, this mass is above it either pushing on the adrenal gland or part of the adrenal gland.

They did another ultrasound to compare to the others and determined the mass did not grow. It is still the same size and shape with no new characteristics. This is a good thing. So as of now, the opinion of the doctors at Vanderbilt are to have the baby as normal, wait 1 month before we bring her in for testing. At that point they will do an ultrasound on her and then determine if they should do a CT scan or an MRI. They are hoping over time to be able to see how this mass changes. They also want to do urine tests to see if the hormone levels are higher than normal. If they are, that indicates a tumor on the adrenal gland, because adrenal glands produce your hormones. If she has to have surgery, they want to wait until she is 5 months or so to do it unless they determine it needs to come out earlier based on growth or unforseen problems that at this point he doesn't see (but doesnt know for sure since the mass is still unknown).

So thats the update we have.... I guess its not bad news, at least I get to have a normal delivery and have a normal first month with my baby!