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The next Lung Cancer Social Media (#LCSM) Chat will occur on Thursday, January 16, 2014 at 5 PM Pacific (8 PM Eastern) on Twitter. The subject will be “Palliative Care for Lung Cancer Patients.” Please note this discussion will focus on comfort care provided to a cancer patient at any time after diagnosis–before, during or after active treatment. We will not be discussing hospice. #LCSM has invited several palliative care specialists to participate in this chat. Confirmed guests include @ctsinclair (Christian Sinclair, MD, #hpm chat co-founder, editor of http://www.pallimed.org), and @chatburn (Andi Chatburn, MD, http://www.kansascityhospice.org). One of the #LCSM Moderators, Dr. Jack West, also has palliative care experience. Our four topics to discuss in this hour-long chat are: T1: What services and benefits can palliative care specialists provide to lung cancer patients and their families? T2: How can we help patients, family members and medical professionals understand differences between palliative care and hospice? T3: How might healthcare providers best introduce the topic of palliative care to their lung cancer patients? T4: How can we help more lung cancer patients take advantage of palliative care services? You can learn more about how to participate in an #LCSM tweetchat at http://lcsmchat.wordpress.com/lcsm-chat/ . If you find tweetchats are not your cup of tea, please go to the #LCSM blog post about the chat (see link below) and add your questions or concerns about palliative care in the comment section by noon Thursday January 16. We’ll do our best to address them during the chat if time allows. http://lcsmchat.wordpress.com/2014/01/1 ... -jan-2014/ Hope to see you on Twitter!

Thanks for the welcome posts! The radiation oncologist and medical oncologist decided NOT to radiate my collarbone area, because the radiation field would include the top of my good right lung (and possibly the top of my left lung too). My left lung has already had a lot of volume irradiated, and I currently have radiation pneumonitis from that. They don't want to make it harder for me to breathe if it won't cure me. I have a CT with contrast scheduled for the day after Christmas, and will be starting on Alimta (or possibly Alimta plus carboplatin) after the first of the year. Still taking antibiotics to keep the pneumonia at bay.

Hi, I'm Janet, age 55. Never smoked anything except a salmon. Diagnosed in May 2011 with stage IIIa adenocarcinoma, I had a large tumor in my lower left lobe, two hot hilar nodes in the left lung, and one hot subcarinal node, all poorly differentiated. The mediastinoscopy showed heavy vascularization between my lungs. I was unable to have surgery due to severe pneumonia at diagnosis -- I would have required a pneumonectomy, and the surgeon thought I wouldn't heal properly. After 10 days in the hospital and weeks of IV antibiotics, I recovered enough from pneumonia to get 33 radiation treatments with 6 weekly concurrent carboplatin/paclitaxel doses, and one full dose of carbo/paclitaxel. Treatment finished in early August 2011. My first post-treatment CAT scan in late September showed the lymph nodes were almost completely resolved, and the tumor had shrunk by over 90%! I was feeling good, the CAT scan was good ... I thought I had a great chance at a cure. In the following two weeks, I underwent several tests to determine if I was healthy enough to have the pneumonectomy after chemo and radiation. One of the tests was a PET scan, which found a hot spot on my right clavicle. A few days later two lymph nodes were removed and found to be more of the same cancer. So now I'm stage IV. Fortunately the brain scan was clear. I may be getting radiation to the area near my clavicle where the lymph nodes were removed. I'm on a chemo vacation until January to recover from first-line therapy, unless I have symptoms before then. Looking forward to getting to know folks here. I'm an engineer by training and a writer by avocation, so I hope to contribute something useful to the board.