Uterine Serous Carcinoma: Seeking doctor and hospital recommendations for my mom

helpmymom123

Hi all - First of all sending support to all of you in this group. You are all so strong!

I am posting because my mom was recently diagnosed with serous endometrial carcinoma (final pathology c/w Stage 1A mixed serous endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma without myometrial invasion). She also separately and independently has stage 3A breast cancer. She is just went through surgery - a lumpectomy and a hysterectomy and her chemo treatment is due to start in January.

She would very much like to get a second opinion on the serous endometrial cancer. If you have had a great experience with a doctor please do let me know. It has been very hard to figure out which doctors at the top cancer institutions we should reach out to. The institutions we are looking at are Dana Farber, MD Anderson, and Memorial Sloane Kettering but open to others!

Also if you have any insight on survival rates and rates of reoccurrence based on her profile for the uterine cancer we would really, really appreciate it.

Thank you, thank you!

P.S.

A few more details from her pathology report to help assist understanding her situation:

mixed serous (90%) and endometrioid carcinoma (10%) carcinoma, confined to the uterine corpus without myometrial or lymphovascular invasion, pT1aN0(sn). 

Forherself

Welcome helpmymom123. She is lucky to have you. It is a very scary thing to be told you have cancer. Your Mom has 90% serous cancer so it will be treated as serous cancer. They always treat for the highest grade. I am thinking she might be in a stage that observation is an option. This is a very difficult place to be because as you are wondering, what is the best choice. I had serous cancer confined to a polyp. I was given the option of treatment or observation only. I had what is called serous endometrial intraepithelial carcinoma. This was in 2018. I opted for no treatment. A lot of people are VERY uncomfortable with that decision, but it has been 6 and 1/2 years and I have not had a recurrence, though am checked every year. I did not get a second opinion as I was very confident in my gyne oncologist. One thing you can ask them. "What would you do if you were sitting in my chair". They will answer that question. It is a good idea for you and your MOM to get a second opinion. You will have some difficult decisions to make about treatment. We are here for you.

NoTimeForCancer

hey helpmymom123, I agree with Forherself, your mom is lucky to have you on her team.

You've identified excellent hospitals there, so if you pick one I don't think you could go wrong with any of them.

Keep in mind breast and uterine cancer can be connected, so ask about genetic testing for her (Lynch syndrome comes to mind), which in turn will help YOU as well.

I had UPSC, uterine papillary serous carcinoma, diagnosis 12 years ago. I had the full sandwich treatment of chemo/radiation/chemo, but there has been research and things have changed there as well.

Since it sounds like your mother is going to be getting chemo for her breast cancer, maybe the questions should be on how it would treat (same / different) from the serous carcinoma.

Keep us posted on your mom!

LynnMarie28

I was diagnosed with uterine carcinosarcoma at Logan Regional Hospital in Logan, Utah at the end of October 2024. I chose to be referred to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City.
On November 1, 2024 I had a robot assisted, radical hysterectomy. I had a very large (14 ounce) tumor in my uterus along with a less than 50% invasion into the myometrium. The sentinel lymph nodes were removed. A biopsy of the lymph nodes showed the cancer had not spread beyond the uterus.
Uterine carcinosarcoma is extremely aggressive so my gynecological oncologist at the Huntsman is having me have 6 rounds of chemo (carboplatin/taxol) and radiation following the chemo. I have chosen brachytherapy, rather than external beam radiation.

I am going for my second round of six total rounds next week. The schedule is six rounds of chemo with 3 weeks of no chemo between each round.

My hair is starting to fall out now.

My balance and ability to walk had become more difficult. (This began before the chemo. A little before the diagnosis it felt like I had sciatica.

LynnMarie28

I apologize that I placed my response to the above query. I mistakenly thought that I was responding to a member who was wanting to know of a cancer treatment center near her.

NoTimeForCancer

https://csn.cancer.org/discussion/comment/1719977#Comment_1719977

No need to apologize! it is all good. Ask anything and hope it all goes well. You can do this.