mom's 6th month fu CT

[AmyGM]

Hi My name is Amy and my mother was dx in July 2015 with a malignant neoplasm of the upper right lobe of the right lung.  She had a right upper lobectomy.  No chemo. no rads.  No mets. no lymph involvement. She has been recovering and doing very well.  She is 70 years old.  This past tuesday we took her for her 6 month f/u chest CT with contrast.  I am very worried.  Probably because I know too much since I too am a cancer survivor (breast, TNBC 3.5 yrs. NED)  Her thoracic surgeon told us that her CT looked good but that he wants to see her back in three months instead of 6 because the radiologist saw a "shadow" in the lower right lobe.  He told her that we were not to worry.  He made no mention of a nodule.  Today she opened up her health portal med. record and looked at her CT report and it says " New ground-glass and partially cystic irregularly shaped subpleural pulmanry nodule in the superior segment of the right lower lobe, associated with new focal pleural retraction, concerning for a metachronoous log grade non-small cell lung carcinoma.  No solid component is visualized and this lesion is not amendable to image guided percutaneous biopsy at this moment"   F/U in three months for ct without contrast. nodule measures up to 5 mm.  

 

I am so confused about all this means. Help.....and why did he not mention a nodule. In my opinion he minimized it completely.  Any  body out there know what all this means??????

[Tom Galli]

Amy,

 

I'm not a doctor but have had plenty of inconclusive CT scans in my 12 years of survivorship.  

 

First, I'll address the radiologist report - key words are: "no solid component is visualized and this lesion is not amenable to image guided percutaneous biopsy at this moment."  She may have cancer.  She may have a chest infection and any one of a number of things but the lesion cannot be biopsied. For diagnosis purposes, a stage and type of cancer is necessary and the biopsy determines the type.  So, the radiologist is saying wait 3 months and we'll see if what ever it is can be biopsied.  

 

Second, I'd be taking this radiologist report to a medical oncologist for a consultation.  Thoracic surgeons tend to view the world as solvable by operating.  Medical oncologist are the experts is dealing with cancer.  So, I'd advise a consultation with the medical oncologist and learn the oncologist's advice.

 

Stay the course.

 

Tom

[CarolinaCareGiver]

HI, Hope all is well with your Mom!         My mom had the exact same situation. RT Upper Lobectomy, no mets, no lymph node involvement.  6 month CT scan showed mets in one lymph node in center of chest and new soft mass on chest wall near surgery site. She is now almost 1/2 way thru 30 Radiation and 4 Chemo Treatments. She has just started to have side effects, I'm trying to get them managed as they pop up. This night time nausea the last few days have been rough! We have been through this 3 times before with my Father in 1988, My Sister in 2000, and my Brother in 2004, everyone has been very different, this time we thought we had this with surgery. I was wondering if anyone else had night time nausea and if taking meds before bed may help? That's what I'm going to try tonight.