Question about lymphnodes

fatmomma
fatmomma Member Posts: 95
in Colorectal Cancer #1
My mom's colon cancer has not spread to any of her organs; however she has some lymph nodes in her chest and abdomen that have cancer. My question is can these not be removed? The doctor told us no....can anyone explain. She is on Erbitux (only) and we find out Thursday if it's working or not.
Thanks.
Love FM

Comments

  • Kathryn_in_MN
    Kathryn_in_MN Member Posts: 1,252 Member
    #2
    This is the case for me
    I have distant lymph node involvement only. I know 3 others in my same situation with no organ involvement. When it is just one node, sometimes they will take it out and do follow-up chemo. When it is multiple nodes there is no point - they just pop up elsewhere. Chemo for life is basically the plan for us. If we get to a point where we appear NED, we can try to go on maintenance or take a chemo break and monitor closely. For me personally if I don't stay on Irinotecan, I progess rather quickly. I don't get 5-FU anymore, just Irinotecan and Avastin. Some are only on Xeloda, and others on FOLFIRI with or w/o Avastin. I cannot try Erbitux because I am KRAS mutant. Your mother is lucky she has one more drug in the arsenal!

    We are treated as if we have a chronic disease like diabetis. Frequent labs and scans, and continued treatments. Overall we are usually slower to progress than those with organ involvement that can't be resected. So while being stage IV and not operable isn't something anyone wants to hear, it could be worse.
  • pepebcn
    pepebcn Member Posts: 6,331 Member
    #3
    No they can't be removed since if you got one or more distant
    nodes affected the whole lymphatic system is affected , so you can't remove the whole system , the best is to try to kill the cells with chemo and some times to have radiation on the nodes!.
    Hugs my dear FM.
  • fatmomma
    fatmomma Member Posts: 95
    #4
    Kathryn_in_MN said:

    This is the case for me
    I have distant lymph node involvement only. I know 3 others in my same situation with no organ involvement. When it is just one node, sometimes they will take it out and do follow-up chemo. When it is multiple nodes there is no point - they just pop up elsewhere. Chemo for life is basically the plan for us. If we get to a point where we appear NED, we can try to go on maintenance or take a chemo break and monitor closely. For me personally if I don't stay on Irinotecan, I progess rather quickly. I don't get 5-FU anymore, just Irinotecan and Avastin. Some are only on Xeloda, and others on FOLFIRI with or w/o Avastin. I cannot try Erbitux because I am KRAS mutant. Your mother is lucky she has one more drug in the arsenal!

    We are treated as if we have a chronic disease like diabetis. Frequent labs and scans, and continued treatments. Overall we are usually slower to progress than those with organ involvement that can't be resected. So while being stage IV and not operable isn't something anyone wants to hear, it could be worse.

    thanks for replying....I
    thanks for replying....I understand it more.
    FM

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