My 78 year old mother had part of her lung removed (cancer)13 years ago. She now has a pleural effusion on the lung that had cancer. What are the chances it is malignant?
It's very unlikely that a cancer from that far back would recur now as a pleural effusion. I can't give a probability that a new effusion would be from cancer -- it really depends on whether there are other potential benign explanations, such as congestive heart failure or an infection. I don't think there are stats for those kinds of questions.
One of the only nice things that can be said about aggressive cancers is that if they don't recur quickly, they're not likely to recur. Recurrence 13 years later would be highly unusual for lung cancer. Of course, there's nothing about prior cancer that prevents a totally new cancer from arising.
When pleural effusions cause shortness of breath or when you want to know the cause, the most typical approach is to drain the effusion. A very thin needle is passed into it, and it's sucked out. The procedure is called thoracentesis. This allows you to not only make the person feel better, but also to analyze the fluid.
Reply # - February 15, 2013, 07:27 PM
Reply To: Pleural Effusion
Did they have to drain it? And we're they going to test it? When they discovered mine they said something like it's 50% chance it wouldn't be.
Reply # - February 15, 2013, 09:38 PM
Reply To: Pleural Effusion
It's very unlikely that a cancer from that far back would recur now as a pleural effusion. I can't give a probability that a new effusion would be from cancer -- it really depends on whether there are other potential benign explanations, such as congestive heart failure or an infection. I don't think there are stats for those kinds of questions.
Good luck.
-Dr. West
Reply # - February 16, 2013, 08:34 AM
Reply To: Pleural Effusion
One of the only nice things that can be said about aggressive cancers is that if they don't recur quickly, they're not likely to recur. Recurrence 13 years later would be highly unusual for lung cancer. Of course, there's nothing about prior cancer that prevents a totally new cancer from arising.
When pleural effusions cause shortness of breath or when you want to know the cause, the most typical approach is to drain the effusion. A very thin needle is passed into it, and it's sucked out. The procedure is called thoracentesis. This allows you to not only make the person feel better, but also to analyze the fluid.