Endometrial carcinoma reg.

No Time for Cancer is right.  The doctor has to determine the stage.  The doctor has to see how far it has spread before he can do that.  For example, if it's just in the lining of the uterus, it's a lower stage than if it goes deeper into the muscle of the uterus.  Mine was considered the worst stage, which is stage IVb because it had spread out of the pelvis.  Mine had spread to both ovaries, the omentum (which is the layer of fat in the belly around the organs), and the small intestine.  How risky it is depends upon the grade of the cancer, which is another thing the doctor should be telling your mother.  There will be doctors called pathologists in the hospital's laboratory that will analyze the cancer under a microscope to determine the type of cancer it is by the appearance of the cells in it, and that type determines the grade of the cancer.  Grade 3 cancers are the most risky, grade 1 cancers the least.  I had a grade 3 cancer called Uterine Papillary Serous Carcinoma, or UPSC for short.  Another grade 3 cancer is MMMT. They are the more risky ones I know of, but everyone is different in how they respond to cancer treatments.  With the worst stage, I shouldn't even still be here, but I am, and I'm just two months from having survived for 5 years after my surgery.  

Most of us start out with surgery, then chemotherapy, often the drugs Carboplatin and Paclitaxel (called "Taxol" for short).  I had these drugs six times, three weeks apart, so it took 15 weeks to get to the the last round of chemo after I had the first round. I couldn't have radiation therapy because it would have required too much radiation as my cancer was too widespread.  A lot of people have the radiation in the middle of their chemotherapy treatments, often after the first three rounds.  The cancer is partially beat down by chemo, then beat down further by radiation, and it's finished off, hopefully, by more chemo.  There are other treatments, too, but it all depends upon the cancer and how the patient's own particular doctor likes to treat it.  Some doctors believe in being more aggressive than others. There are certain things in some patients' genetic make-up that might cause them to get cancer and have more trouble getting rid of it. And how a person lives can also be a factor (diet, for example).  Some people get rid of it after one round of treatments, others may get recurrences over and over throughout their lives and have it spread to other places.  

Your mom should see a gynecological oncologist, or "gyn/onc" if possible as they are generally the doctors who are the experts.  The doctor will most likely set her up for surgery first, and then she'll find out the stage, type, and grade of her cancer sometime after that surgery.  I got my results about 10 days later.  Sometimes, the doctor has the results reviewed by a group of doctors called a tumor board, and they decide on the details of the type, stage, and grade of the cancer based on the lab results.  My gyn/onc told me that he thought mine had started in the ovaries, but when he had the other doctors review my case, they decided it had started in the uterus and then spread to the ovaries and elsewhere.  Where the cancer starts determines what organ they use to describe the cancer (mine was considered uterine instead of ovarian because the tumor board decided it started in the uterus). I had a wait of about a month between my surgery and my first chemo, and most people have some kind of waiting period.  

I hope this helps you.  Just take it day by day and try to have faith so you can support your mother.  Give her all the help you can as she'll probably be weak after her surgery and during chemo.   I wish your mother a quick recovery.  

Hopeful162 said:

Thank you Pinky for your

Thank you Pinky for your thorough reply; you really covered it well. All of this was so new to me back in September, 2014, when I was diagnosed with uterine UPSC, but now I am through surgery and chemo, and life is looking up! I remember my adult daughter had lots of questions, and we had to find answers together, both from the internet and my doctors. Having cancer puts one in a whole new world. Good luck, Rockey. I wish your mom well.

I needed to read both my operative report and my pathology report, so I requested copies of both.  Well, I learned quite a bit about my situation from just reading them, especially the path report.  When the doctor does the hysterectomy surgery, he will look around and remove any suspicious growths that he can remove.  If it is cancer this is called debulking. The stage refers to how far the cancer has spread in the body and the grade refers to how abnormal the cancer cells look.  When cancer spreads, it is called metastatic.  The higher stages refer to metastatic disease.  A metastasis may be local or distant.  If  cancer cells look slightly different than normal cells, than it is less aggressive.  If the cancer cells look very different from normal cells, than it is an aggressive cancer, or grade 3.  The lower the stage and grade, the less likely the cancer will recur or come back.

Hope this helps,

Cathy