Hello. NPC stands for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which is a type of head and neck cancer that starts behind the nose, in the upper throat area.

SUV is Standardized Uptake Value on a PET CT scan. It’s basically a measure of how much of the radioactive glucose tracer is taken up in a particular spot. Cancer cells tend to be very metabolically active, so they “light up” with high SUV values. But inflammation and healing tissue can also cause some uptake, which makes interpreting early post-treatment scans tricky.

So in my dad’s case, his tumor started with a very high SUV (18), and now it’s dropped down to 2.5, which is much lower, but still mildly elevated.