Micro nodules 5 months after lung lobectomy scar tissue or cancer - 1294296

Hi metafran,

I hope you're cancer free. A few mm nodule post surgery is at least as likely inflammation, scar tissue or infection as cancer. Has it been there? If so it's most likely benign and won't change. If it's near the surgical site then scar and inflammation is likely. Your radiologist will compare this scan with your next and keep an eye on changes.
Lung cancer does tend to grow with certain characteristics but a few mm won't tell much about that.

I wish I could tell you not to worry but I know better. Regular follow up scans will tell the tell. I a couple of months or years from now I look forward to hearing you're living life with less worry.

All best,
Janine

Hi Metafran,

The horizontal fissure (also called the minor fissure) is a structure in the right lung that separates the right middle lobe from the right upper lobe. So, yes, they would be on the periphery of the right upper lobe.

Since you had your right middle lobe removed, that region would have been disturbed, so as Janine said, it could be scar tissue or inflammation. What does your report say as to the overall impression or recommendation for follow up scans?

I don't know which one the 'grand' fissure is, but it is either at the lower edge of the upper lobe or the upper edge of the lower one, as you suggest. The nodules are too small to biopsy so the only course is to watch and wait.

I am also not sure what a coronal reconstruction is. That might be a factor in the determining what the few tiny nodules are. I think the only question is when to rescan. 4 months seems reasonable but so would 3. Inflammatory processes can take that long to resolve. You can realistically hope these will go away and are not a recurrence.

Right 3 months in the US is pretty typical but there are no hard and fast rules about timing of scans. 4 months is reasonable. There's just no way of knowing what it is until it shows itself to be scar, inflammation or cancer. As everyone here knows waiting can be the hardest part of all this.

Here's hoping for the best,
Janine

Watching and waiting can be hard sometimes, especially at the beginning of a lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. But it is more or less a way of life for many people who are living longer with lung cancer than most have in the past.

I have also got some tiny nodules in my lungs but they were there from the beginning. Probably even without these nodules I would get scanxiety and worry a lot sometimes about what I would do if the cancer were to rear its head again.

A scan in 3 or 4 months will actually provide some more useful information while doing anything sooner may not add to your or your doctor's knowledge at all. There are lots of people walking around with tiny nodules in their lungs, including lung cancer patients. And it is a big problem in screening to figure out how to deal with situations where the risk of cancer is actually quite low. When they are that small they are most likely benign if they were found in a random person, but of course the situation is different if you have had lung cancer because of the possibility of recurrence.

It is good they will be keeping a close eye on things. That is the best one can hope for nowadays. There's research toward making non-invasive (blood or breath) ways of detecting early cancer or recurrence. I am confident that one day these test will be used in practise and go a long way to alleviating patients worries. In fact, I hope to live long enough to take one of these tests.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/cancer-research/news/a-breath-test-f…
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/rumc-rsb010918.php

Hi metafran,

As onthemark stated, the new non-invasive biopsy techniques, using bodily fluids or breath, are currently under investigation, and blood biopsies are approved for use in mutation testing in Europe. Drs. West, Soria and Gandhi discussed the current use and future possibilities for these biopsies here.

Until that technology matures to the point at which it could be used to reliably detect recurrences or progression, the standard remains periodic follow-up scans and clinical evaluation of the patient. I agree that the issues of waiting, uncertainty and feelings of helplessness are some of the toughest aspects of a cancer diagnosis, both for patients and their loved ones.

I hope that future scans will help alleviate your worries.

JimC
Forum moderator

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your reply. In order to alleviate any confusion, the two articles I linked to are not about biopsies at all. They are not looking at tumour cells or tumour DNA at all, unlike the talk you linked to. One looks at changes in RNA as a result of having tumour(s) in the body and another looks at changes in protein. They are more useful at this point for a determination, yes or no, is there lung cancer in the body that to specifying, as in a biopsy that looks at DNA, what kind of lung cancer it is.