Any suggestions about lung mets surgery

Erica2016

Abita

I have three mets in my right lung and the thoracic surgeon decided that my mets were too small (3mm largest) to have surgery and thus I was disqualified. She did mention that if they grow they will revisit my case. Go for a second opinion, I myself am looking into one.

wishing you the best. 

abita

Erica2016 said:

Abita

I have three mets in my right lung and the thoracic surgeon decided that my mets were too small (3mm largest) to have surgery and thus I was disqualified. She did mention that if they grow they will revisit my case. Go for a second opinion, I myself am looking into one.

wishing you the best. 

I wonder if that is why mine

I wonder if that is why mine were never onsidered. When I first asked, it was because they were in different areas of my right lung. Now 2 are at 3 mm. Thanks for that information

Was that just for surgery, or were you looking into ablation as well?

Erica2016

abita said:

I wonder if that is why mine

I wonder if that is why mine were never onsidered. When I first asked, it was because they were in different areas of my right lung. Now 2 are at 3 mm. Thanks for that information

Was that just for surgery, or were you looking into ablation as well?

Abita

My conversations with surgeons were always about the surgery, ablation was not on the table for me. She stated that my mets were inside my lung in different lobes. 

Diane_K

Abita and Erica,

Abita and Erica,

I don't know if my situation was different than yours, but my lung nodules were too small to biopsy with a needle.  I was given three choices. One was to wait for them to grow large enough to biopsy with a needle, the second was to go back on chemo again before the biopsy, and the third was to have a surgical biopsy.  I chose the third.  They did two wedge sections on my right lung to remove two nodules in the same lobe.  The surgical pathology found that they were metastatic colon cancer, and were removed with clean margins.  A couple months later I had a third one removed from my left lung.

OnTheRoad

Diane_K said:

Abita and Erica,

Abita and Erica,

I don't know if my situation was different than yours, but my lung nodules were too small to biopsy with a needle.  I was given three choices. One was to wait for them to grow large enough to biopsy with a needle, the second was to go back on chemo again before the biopsy, and the third was to have a surgical biopsy.  I chose the third.  They did two wedge sections on my right lung to remove two nodules in the same lobe.  The surgical pathology found that they were metastatic colon cancer, and were removed with clean margins.  A couple months later I had a third one removed from my left lung.

I think I might be on a similar situation...

On my last CT scan I had one "finding" on the left lung with 6mm of size and two lightly enlarged lymph nodes that "possibly"  are mets as well.

I am thinking what are my options... for the lung "finding" - if proven to be a met - I think my onc will ask a surgeon to join the team and have it removed. He told me surgery is the usual procedure for lung mets instead of ablation since ablations have a higher morbity than surgery for lungs. Diane_K, how was your surgery and the recovery of it ? Was it too harsh ?

For the lymph nodes, my onc thinks it is difficult for them to be cancer, since this is not a common place for colon cancer to spread to. Let's see what the PET-CT shows in a month from now.

Diane_K, after having the 3 mets removed did you had any recurrence ? Did you had any adjuvant chemo after the 2 surgeries ? How long are you NED now ?

Thanks !

Diane_K

I had minimally invasive

I had minimally invasive procedures using video and robot-assisted surgeries to remove the lung tumors.  The incisions were small, I spent one night in the hospital after each surgery, and I was able to manage my pain with extra strength tylenol.  They prescribed percoset but fortunately I didn't need them.  Before this I had two tumors removed from my liver and that was very painful.  The recovery took much longer.

Yes, I did have adjunct chemo after the lung surgeries for 6 months, Folfiri. 

I was diagnosed May 2015, had colon resection surgery, was on Folfox chemo for two months, had liver surgery and then finished 4 more months of Folfox.  Shortly after stopping Folfox the tumors in my lungs began to grow.  My last lung surgery was January 2017 and I am now 4.5 years NED.  My next scans will be in April 2022.  It makes me very nervous to go one year between scans.