Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Maryjane]

Just had good news and bad news today. The good news is that my husband's Stage 3B lung cancer appears in remission, 6 months after combo chemo and radiation. The bad news is that his oncologist is now concerned with possible multiple 1.5 cm metastases to the liver.  He will be having a PET scan in the next week or two to try to determine if these are in fact cancerous or something else.  Has anyone else been through the liver mets situation? Any advice? We expect results of PET scan in early March and are trying to prepare for it.

[Dr Pennell]

Maryjane, thank you for sharing your husband's situtation with the GRACE community. Waiting for test results can be a miserable time, but the PET scan should be helpful in answering if these are truly metastases to the liver from the lung. Depending on how ambiguous the picture is, sometimes a liver biopsy can be helpful but is not always necessary.

Not seeing the scan myself, I cannot comment on the chances of this being the case for your husband. However, the unfortunate reality is that most patients with stage IIIB NSCLC will evenutually relapse either in the lung or outside the lung, so this would not be at all unusual. If he does indeed have liver metastases then his oncologist will likely recommend chemotherapy to try and control the disease.

Good luck during this trying time, and please keep us updated on your husband's situation.

[Maryjane]

Thanks for your quick response, and helpful indication of likely future. I am still in shhock (which is strange given that we have been living with the lung cancer demon for18 months) and just trying to absorb, adjust, and all that goes along with it. The PET scan should be done in the next week, and the follow-up will be March 10, so I will post when I find out the results.

[Dr West]

Maryjane,

  While the PET scan will likely clarify the situation, new liver lesions are very concerning for the probability of being metastatic lesions, and as Dr. Pennell suggested, this situation is more common than we'd prefer to see, even after optimal treatment.

   I hope that it will help to know that if the additional workup shows recurrent cancer, there are certainly options that would likely be helpful.  The plan may change, but you'll develop a plan for the best way to move forward.

-Dr. West