What happens when the pathology report after surgery shows cancer in lymph nodes (1 or 2) and throug

Hello Carey-Ann,

There's hope from where you guys are and from even worse spots.  There's a regular poster here, Paul, who was in a very similar spot.  He had additional chemo and has successfully beaten the cancer back.  I'd expect him to respond to you here.  I had essentially the same treatment, but for different reasons.  I had chemo/radiation, then surgery, then bonus chemo.  I had apparently had a complete response to the chemo/radiation as shown by the surgical pathology.  I still did a six month course of bonus chemo because I was young (41) and we wanted to be as aggressive as possible to hopefully give me decades of additional life, not months or years.  The chemo was the same, but much stronger than with the radiation.  It sucked, but it gave me the best chance for long term survival, so we willingly did it. 

I mentioned that there's hope from even worse spots than you're in (not that what you're facing is all good & jolly) because even with my apparently successful, extremely aggressive treatment I still had a recurrence.  My recurrence was a couple of years later (I was 44) and in a lung (stage IV).  I was given 7-8 months and told to get my affairs in order sooner, not later.  That was 2011 and I'm still here and still testing clean.  This disease is being more and more successfully treated every year.  The process still sucks, but there's legitimate hope for ultimate success.  

Believe me, I know just how much you hate where you are, but there isn't reason to give up hope.  It can be beaten.  Hopefully you guys are the next ones to beat it back.

Best wishes,

Ed

Carey-Ann,

I was diagnosed stage IV in August 2015 with local and distant lymph nodes involved and I have been showing no evidence of disease NED for over 2 years now. It is not uncommon for the pathology report to show lymph nodes involvement and cancer still in the esophagus. We all hope to have a clean pathology report after a esophagectomy but showing traces of cancer in the primary site and nodes is quite to common. That's why we get the surgery, even though we show a clean scan we go thru all this just to make sure we do everything possible to make sure the cancer is gone. In your husbands case, the surgery was needed as he still had active cancer and now the cancer is removed. Having the surgery was a good thing for your husband and now he needs to recover some and then demand that he gets clean up chemo just to make sure you you kill any traces of cancer that may be floating around. Wishing you guys the best and I also was 44 when diagnose.

Carry-Ann:

    My pre surgery Pet showed no actiity in any of my lymph nodes (4 were originally lit up) or my tumor. I had Surgery on Dec 12 and pathology showed great margins, but tumor shrunk by only %40 and still had 2 nodes with residual disease. I am being treated at MSK and my surgeon said I must either get more chemo or a clinical trail with Immunotherapy as the nodes are a "giant red flag" in her words. My original treatment was 9 weeks of carbo/taxel and 28 radiation treatments. I am now in the middle of 6 rounds of what they call Dox( Docitael/Oxciliplatian/xeloda) it is kinda of a modified Folfox and my Dr says based on his data more effective with less side effects. I am told the brute force of a systemic regimine like this is my best shot of killing off any microscopic cells that may have leaked out. I was also told that if you are going to get post surgery chemo it should be started withing 6-8 weeks of surgery and the reason it does not happen is many people are not recovered and strong enough to tolerate so soon after surgery. Like your husband I am in my 40's and the new chemo regiment is harder, but tolerable.