No surgery?

joyful
joyful Member Posts: 7
edited March 2014 in Kidney Cancer #1
My urologist called and said, my CT SCAN reveals a benig cyst. WHAT A RELEIF! No surgery is needed. They will watch the tumor closely and I have to have another CT scan 6 months from now.

Could numerous CT cans ruin my health later?

Should I get the bening tumor removed?

Comments

  • Chicago
    Chicago Member Posts: 73 Member
    #2
    Great news for you. My own CT scans were inconclusive (which is why I am now a test study). We opted to go for the surgery while I am still young and otherwise healthy, just in case. Good call, since the mass they removed turned out to be cancerous after all.

    We did though, also find several cysts which are definitely not cancerous at the moment. So, like you, I have to get scanned at least every six months to make sure they don't change. The docs seem to think that these benign masses may become malignant at some time in the future.

    But I wouldn't touch the benign mass if your doc says you don't need it now. The surgery I had was pretty brutal, and you definitely don't want to go through that if you don't have to. You can always do it later if they detect any changes. Six months seems to be more than enough time to catch RCC in its earliest stages.

    I imagine that your mass is not that large at this stage, so they probably would not even take the whole kidney to get at it. I learned the hard way that a partial nephrectomy is a much more serious operation than the radical nephrectomy. The tradeoff though, is that you get to keep at least some of that working kidney.

    Numerous CT scans can't be great for you, but Renal Cell Carcinoma will be much much worse if you don't spot it early. I imagine the risk from all the scans you and I get is pretty minor, if at all.

    Stay joyful.

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