? Mets

[Rosie]

Hi everyone,

We are still new to all of this. My mother is going for another scan today and a few other appts. before we know more details.

I've heard a lot people talk about mets. What exactly is that?

Thanks and blessings to all of you.

[john]

mets are short for metastasis. It means the cancer has spread from the

primary tumor to another organ.

Basically a tumor can be primary or secondary.

The primary cancer is where the cancer started. The secondary is the tumor that has metastasized

For example a person may have lung cancer (primary) and a brain met(s) (secondary). The brain tumor is not brain cancer it is lung cancer that has spread (metastasized) to the brain.

http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/help/default.asp?page=101

Hope this helps answer your questions. The link above may help also

[Rosie]

Thank you for your help.

Yesterday my mom went for the cat scan to check the rest of her body.

They called yesterday afternoon to tell her they have spotted a trauma to the brain and scheduled an MRI for tomorrow. Trauma? Does that mean that it may have spread? When I hear trauma I think someone has been hit in the head.

[beckyg]

It just means there is something that showed up on the scan and they can't be sure what it is without further tests.

Becky

[Guest]

I have a related question - how do they know when a tumor in another organ is a met? How can they tell it's from Lung cancer and not a primary cancer?

[Cary]

To answer your question, they would have to perform a biopsy.

Cary

[john]

They have to do a biopsy and the correct stainings or whatever tests they do (I don't know what they are). Adenocarcinoma can be a primary lung or a primary colon cancer.

CDX2 can be used to differentiate the two from what I have read.

Sometimes it is even less clear and people have "unknown primary"