kimblanchard Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 Hi, I am writing to get some help and information for my dad. My father was diagnosed with Stage 3 almost 4 laryngeal cancer in July of 2002 and had a complete laryngectomy and radical neck dissection in August of 2002. His surgeon at Hopkins felt that he got everything and my dad has been having regular check-ups ever since. He asked his doctor down here for a chest x-ray just to make sure everything was still ok and they found a spot on his left lung. He had a needle biopsy this past Thursday (not fun, apparently the spot is in a difficult area and they had a hard time getting to it). The inital results before leaving the hospital were that it was non-malignant. After getting the official results today we were told that the biopsy results were inconclusive. So I guess we are back at square one. He was told that the spot is about 1.5cm to 2cm. Has anyone else had this happen? We are really confused and overwhelmed! Of course this all happened late Friday afternoon so we have to sit on this until next week! His surgeon at Hopkins told my mother that he does not believe that this is a metastis (sp?) from the first cancer. He feels that if this is cancer it is a second primary cancer and that this could also just be an infection. They are now talking about doing an open lung biopsy with a pathologist present so if it comes back positive they can go ahead and do surgery and remove that part of his lung. Any suggestions? Any information would be very helpful! Thank You! Tammy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fay A. Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 My first needle biopsy came back inconclusive. The second one came back as malignant. Knowing what I know now, I would have opted to never have a needle biopsy at all, and insisted on open lung surgery to have the tumors removed..intact, undisturbed, and hopefully with clear margins. Wishing your Father good luck. As bad as having a second cancer is, having a new primary has a better prognosis than a met from the original cancer. Wishing you well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimblanchard Posted June 7, 2004 Author Share Posted June 7, 2004 Thanks Fay, I appreciate you taking the time to give me some info. Unfortunately we still don't have much information. I'll let you know when we have more. Tammy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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