Online CPR Certification Blog

Blood tests

The first way of diagnosing carcinoid tumor involves undertaking blood tests to check the presence of cancerous cells. For people having a carcinoid tumor, it is possible for the blood to have some high levels of various hormones that the carcinoid tumor secrets. In addition, the blood also contains some by-products that are created after the body breaks down the hormones. Your doctor will thus conduct a series of tests on your blood to try and determine if there are cancerous cells that could indicate the presence of carcinoid tumor.

Urine tests

As a health expert will tell you, people having carcinoid tumor usually have a chemical in their urine that is usually in high levels. This chemical is usually produced after the body has broken down the hormones which carcinoid tumor secrets. For this reason, undertaking a urine test is of paramount importance as this helps in ensuring that the cancerous cells are easily spotted. Urine tests can be performed together with the blood tests for carcinoid tumor for confirmatory purposes.

Imaging tests

There are a couple of imaging tests that the doctor can undertake in the process of diagnosing carcinoid tumor. The most commonly used imaging tests include the CT- computerized tomography scan, MRI- magnetic resonance imaging, PET- positron emission tomography, X- ray and octreotide scan and others depending on what the doctor will see best. The use of these imaging tests helps a lot in pin pointing where the carcinoid tumor is located.

A camera or scope that sees inside your body

There are times when your doctor might prefer to use a thin, long tube that is equipped with a camera or a lens for examining the areas found inside your body. As far as an endoscopy is concerned, a scope is passed down the throat and this helps the physician to see right inside the gastrointestinal tract. Then there is bronchoscopy where by a scope is passed right down the throat and it is passed into your lungs. This helps in finding the lung carcinoid tumors which might at times be hand to locate. Colonoscopy is the procedure in which the scope is passed through the rectum and this helps in diagnosing rectal carcinoid tumor. A small pill sized camera will be used by the doctor to see your small intestine. This camera is swallowed in form of a capsule and the procedure is known as capsule endoscopy.

Tissue removing for lab tests

Biopsy involves the collection of a tissue sample from the tumor and this helps a lot in confirming your diagnosis. The kind of biopsy that you are going to undergo will essentially depend on the location of the tumor. There are cases when surgeons make use of a needle for drawing out some cells from the tumor and are observed under the microscope.