Small Cell Cancer

LorettaB

Hi, Everyone,

I am a breast cancer survivor and used the Cancer Survivors Network during the entire time of my treatment.

I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year. She went through the surgery and chemo. Recently she had a hysterectomy and they found more tumors with lesions. The cancer was diagnosed as "small cell cancer".

I have been looking on the internet for information on small cell cancer and most of it is about lung cancer.

Can anyone point me in the right direction about small cell cancer and is it only associated with lung cancer? What is the relationship of ovarian cancer and small cell cancer?

I will also post this on the lung cancer topic.

Thanks so much for any help.

Loretta

BonnieR

I would contact your local ACS and they could.

Prayers adn Hugs Bonnie

pshnyc

Loretta,
Congratulations on your survivorship and I'm sorry to hear of your friend's diagnosis. Small cell carcinoma of the ovary is a rare type of ovarian carcinoma. Only sporadic cases have been reported in the literature. The small cell carcinoma of the ovary are divided in two types: the hypercalcemic and the pulmonary type.

The hypercalcemic type occurs in the ovary and most often in young women. The pulmonary type occur mostly in perimenopausal and menopausal women and are similar to those of small cell carcinoma of the lung. This tumor type is also known to occur in other sites such as prostate, bladder, esophagus, stomach, colon, pancreas, endometrium, cervix, breast and others.

Treatment usually entails complete debulking (tumor removal) and hysterectomy just like ovarian cancer, usually followed by chemo and sometimes radiation.

If you go to the NIH web site (www.nih.gov) you can find more information. I don't know where your friend is being treated but hopefully she is at a major cancer hospital that has experience in dealing with this kind of rare cancer.

Best of luck to her,

Pamela
New York City