I was so over the moon last night that I didn’t provide much detail regarding our little friend Mr. Fatty Necrosis, he who scared the living crap out of us after Chuck’s last PET scan. While he sounds vaguely like a silent film villain, or possibly a grotesque vaudevillian (or as a friend has suggested, a helluva name for a cat), he (it, or even possibly she – who knows?) is actually fat necrosis (I just think Fatty is cuter). Fat necrosis is a condition in which normal fat cells go through a change and become round lumps. It occurs as a result of either direct injury or by chemo/radiation to the blood vessels supplying the fat tissue.  This causes the fat tissue to literally “die” or undergo necrosis, leaving behind either calcifications or areas of lucency (dark areas) which can then show up as FDG-avid (like they’re cancer) on a PET scan. the only way to absolutely ascertain what it is is to biopsy it.

So there you go, Mr. Fatty Necrosis. Let the fat jokes begin.