@diverjer If the PSMA PET scan report doesn’t reference the SUVmax scores of your…..:
> lacrimal (tear) or parotid (salivary) glands
> liver (hepatic)
> blood

….then, they left it out for some reason.

As it turns out, PSMA (prostate specific membrane antigen) is not really “prostate specific.” There are other organs, tissues, and fluids that naturally express PSMA (without being cancerous) and will show up as physiologic tracer uptake on a PSMA PET scan - particularly in the lacrimal (tear) and parotid (salivary) glands, blood, liver, spleen, pancreas, ganglia, and more, as well as the kidneys, ureters and the bladder (as the body tries to quickly excrete the radioligand that was injected).

So, they use for comparison the PSMA SUVmax values of your blood (as the lowest level), liver (as the medium level), and parotid or lacrimal glands (as the highest level) of SUVmax expression.

If a suspicious area (lesion) is expressing PSMA, and it has:
> a PSMA SUV score less than blood, then it’s not likely cancer, but instead just normal, background PSMA cellular expression;

> a PSMA SUV score greater than blood, but lower than liver, then it’s likely low-grade prostate cancer;

> a PSMA SUV score greater than liver, but lower than the lacrimal/parotid glands, then it’s likely moderate-grade prostate cancer;

> a PSMA SUV score greater than the parotid/lacrimal glands, then it’s likely high-grade prostate cancer;

It’s important to know where your 11.1 SUVmax falls on that blood-liver-parotid(or lacrimal) SUVmax range, because that might drive what treatments you get.

As always, discuss all this with your doctor.

Dr. Johnson (of Mayo Clinic) talks about this in his presentation, starting with the scans we’ve all heard about (MRI, bone, & CT scans), and then going into detail about PSMA PET scans: https://youtu.be/JoJomACA5UM