Mother pancoast tumor?

[michiganlisa]

Hi everyone, My mother in March 07 was having a pain in her upper left side back area. She was diagnosed as having a torn tendon/arthritis. Finally, after pain getting worse (also left eyelid drooping, sweats only on right side of face) Sept. 14th chest xray abnormal mass left lung. CT scan 09/15/07, general physician calls her and says is cancer (pancoast tumor) and also tells her it is inoperable. 09/25/07 has lung biopsy done with needle and ct scan. Her oncologist appointment is two weeks from now, Oct. 9th.

We are getting copies today of all tests and results ourselves. I do have right now a copy of the results of the ct scan. I can post this if anyone can interpret it for me. It appears there is mediastinal invasion and spinal invasion.

My question now is can an opinion be formed at this point that the cancer is inoperable?

[Donna G]

I had a pancoast tumor and several others here also have had one. Some were told by one doctor that there was no treatment. They went to another doctor , got treatment and are still here. It is always worth a try to get a 2nd or 3rd or 4th opinion.

Keep us posted.

Donna G

PS

I just have a short summary below, if you want more detail see "MY Story" called "Through the valley to the mountain."

[DrWest]

For anyone looking for some general background on Pancoast tumors and a current discussion of the latest treatment approaches, I've written some summaries here:

http://onctalk.com/2007/10/12/pancoast-tumor-intro/

http://onctalk.com/2007/10/15/pancoast-trimodality-rx/

I hope these posts are helpful to people.

-Dr. West