does anyone have lung cancer that might be comming from somewhere else?????

Ex_Rock_n_Roller said:

Cancer from elsewhere
Yes, my cousin has had a very rare form of abdominal cancer for some time, and it presented in her lungs last year. I don't know much beyond that, except that I believe the short-term prognosis is not as bad as it would have been with primary lung cancer.

soccerfreaks said:

Another perspective
My lung cancer was inititally suspected to be, in fact diagnosed to be, metastasis (moving to the lung from another area) from a previous head/neck cancer situation.

As it turned out, it was the same kind of cancer (squamous cell carcinoma), but was still small enough when they did the biopsy that they could not establish whether it was mets or new.

Contrary to what Ex_Rock indicates, in my case had the biopsy established this as metastasis they would have done nothing more with respect to surgery, and simply would have zipped me up and sent me home to prepare for palliative care, chemotherapy.

Because they were not sure, they did a lobectomy and frankly, I went into that biopsy HOPING to wake up with one less lobe than I went in with.

All of which is to say, in my extremely limited experience, it is typically better if the lung cancer is a primary. In your mom-in-law's case, there is the additional problem that the cancer appears to have spread to both lungs, which may preclude surgery altogether.

Still, I know quite a few folks on this site who are surviving via chemotherapy, especially, for many years now, some of them even NED (No Evidence of Disease). Even those still in treatment, continuing treatment, seem enthused, many of them, by promising new therapies, promising new technologies.

I wish mom-in-law and her family, friends, and loved ones the very best moving forward.

Take care,

Joe

cabbott said:

Mets to the lung
Doctors really have to try hard to find out where the cancer cells originate so they know what kind of chemotherapy to use. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002. In 2006, an xray showed a spot on the lung. Most doctors would have immediately begun treating me for breast cancer that had moved to the lung. There are many chemotherapies that are effective on stage 4 breast cancer, which is another name for cancer which has set up camp away from the primary spot. Those meds don't work however on lung cancer, only on breast cancer that has set up camp in the lung. Fortunately for me, my doctor urged me to get a biopsy of the spot. The surgeon who did that surgery backed out when the FIRST look at the cancer made it seem to be a resurection of my original breast cancer. AFTER the pathologist did some tests on the tumor, however, it turned out to be lung cancer, stage 1. The treatment for that is more surgery. Ouch! So far, that surgery has worked. If the doctors had put me through 9 months of breast cancer chemo, the spot would have grown and who knows, I might be pushing up daisies. Cancer is an umbrella term that covers a lot of kinds of crazy cells. Different treatments work on different crazy cells. I wouldn't worry at all about whether it is better to have one kind over another. Just get to the best docs you can travel to and find out what you are dealing with. Then you will know what can or cannot be done for it. And even if it is a "bad" kind of cancer where the probabilities of success are not so good, remember that stats are numerical descriptions of what has happened to groups of others in the past. They don't describe individuals. They can't describe the present or your future.Even if they could,as one survivor put it in a post I read a long time ago, if only 1 out of 100 people survive a particular cancer for more than 5 years, whose to say you aren't the 1! Good luck!