Lung Nodules, GGO, Links, and Stage 1 NSCLC

Hi Carol,  Good to see you.  I'm very sorry about what your spouse and you are going through.  I completely relate to the spouse position in all this.  My husband had unresectable stage 3B and after 7 years and no treatment, we like to say he's cured.  

If each one was biopsied and found adenocarcinoma then your spouse likely has AIS aka BAC.  Since they have had 3 incidences it's likely your spouse will have others and the goal is to preserve as much lung tissue as possible while keeping it at bay.  The great news is that it's not invasive the scary reality is there's a possibility that it will become invasive.  However, for many living with BAC is manageable and never becomes deadly.  Obviously if possible you'd want to remove it and be cured once and for all.  But, if cancer cells can find a place to hide it becomes a recurring issue.  This is where "watch and wait" and balancing treatment with hands-off approach come in to play.  A discussion with your spouse's oncologist can help you understand where they if on this spectrum. 

A second opinion from someone who specializes in AIS BAC is a good idea.  Most medical oncologists rarely see pure BAC.  They are used to treating nsclc as an aggressive disease and overtreat. A specialist can work with your spouse's home oncologist to help make decisions for management during decision-making times. 

Have you tried our search engine?  I'm sorry about the dead end links.  If they are going to be fixed we have to do them individually.  I've been spending more time bringing old articles over from our archives, mostly basic cancer info but I'll work on BAC articles next week.  If you know the name of articles or just have search terms pm me and I'll look in the archives.  You probably know Dr. West is a specialist on BAC and has been for many years so we have a lot of good material.  All the older articles are mostly relevant.  Keep in mind that some of the drugs have changed.  SRBT is a fairly new typical treatment for small tumors; where before you may not have used radiation if it meant sacrificing a lot of healthy lung tissue but the more recent use of SRBT means less tissue lost.  But the mantra of watch and wait is the same and balancing when to treat and when to watch something do mostly nothing is the same and is an art form. 

Living with the wait and watch approach is a lifelong change in the quality of hope.  

All best,

Janine

I don't know if there's a good understanding of why BAC can change over time but like all cancers, it mutates to get around an obstacle like a cancer that mutates to get around a drug.  In the case of BAC it needs to become aggressive; nodules become more solid and/or begin to grow more rapidly. In short oncologists will tell you, ‘cancer can and will do anything’. n

Let me emphasize again,  only some pure BAC mutate into an aggressive (or more aggressive) form of nsclc.  While most BAC that is found early can be resected and cured sometimes surgery doesn’t remove all the cancer cells and BAC becomes a managed disease.  It takes careful balancing the waiting and taking action. 

 AIS or more often Dr. West refers to it as BAC (Bronchioloalveolar Carcinoma).  AIS or pure BAC is nsclc that's extremely indolent or slow growing and can be managed.  It sounds like your sp's onc is using a good watch and wait approach that is critical for managing AIS.  A 2nd op adds more eyes on the subject and boosts more satisfying treatment decisions. One of my favorite articles is Dr. Weiss' An Insider's Guide to the Second Opinion.  I couldn't find it a couple of months ago, all the links, 'surprise surprise' returned the broken link error. I found it and others in the archives and am moving them to the new site.  There are tons of old articles already on the new grace site but they have new url and filled with broken links. The ones with the “ARCHIVES” logo are the ones I’ve recently moved (the past month or so) and should have only good links.  A true problem that we address one at a time and as members request. TMI.

Does this help clear things up?  I'll be posting new old articles on BAC for the next couple of days and will past links to this thread. 

Janine

This is a link to search results using our search engine and "BAC" as the search term.  All the links in the search results should be good but the links in the articles are likely broken.  Let me know if this post isn't correct.