Lung metastases

cabbott said:

Mets
There are lots of folks at this discussion board that have had mets and are doing very well. The better your health when you begin chemo, the more aggressive your doctors can be. Sometimes that's what makes the difference. Sometimes it just depends on the kind of cancer you have. If you are facing chemo, then know that it is strong medicine for a big problem. Doctors won't even suggest chemo if it won't do more good than it has side effects. Yep, there are side effects with any drug and chemo has plenty of side effects. But I have heard many stories from many, many cancer survivors that have been through chemo and come back to this board just to help other survivors on their journey. So if you are about to start chemo for mets, come back here with your questions. Good luck!

hope0310 said:

You say lung mets....what is
You say lung mets....what is the primary cancer? Mets is never good, but can be treatable.
Or are you meaning to say they have lung cancer, and it has metastisized to another location?

cabbott said:

Ewings vs. Lung Cancer
I had to look it up and I'm no doctor, but I did find some facts about Ewings. It usually starts in the bones and often turns up in children and young people. It can spread to the lungs or the brain, so scans are done on a regular basis to see if a patient has developed a "met". Obviously, it's not so great when the cancer is spreading. In other kinds of cancer that I know more about, the staging moves to stage 4 when it spreads to another organ or area distant from where it began. I'm not sure about Ewings though I did find that chemotherapy is used to treat anyone with Ewings who has begun to develop "mets".

Another thing I have learned from reading about cancer is what nacrotic tissue is. Sometimes cancer tissue grows so fast that it outgrows the blood supply in the area and dies. Then it is nacrotic. Removing it prevents infections and problems. The body can take care of little spots of dead tissue (think how your body heals after a splinter or some other injury). There can be live cancer growing around a dead center, so the doctor has to remove all of the spot when it is big.

A person can have Ewings and have lung cancer. I have two kinds of cancer diagnosed by biopsy: breast cancer and lung cancer, both stage one. A path report will usually tell whether you are dealing with a met to the lung or lung cancer. The doctor has to know so they can order the right kind of chemotherapy. Different kinds of cancer respond to different medicines even if they are both in the lung.So I am glad your friend has gotten a biopsy already done.

There is more information on Ewings in many places on the web. You can put the name of the kind of cancer you are interested in in a search engine like "google" or yahoo. However, be aware that some of the things you find out when you read about cancer can be frightening. Anything more than a few months old is outdated in terms of cancer research, so don't be frightened. Doctors are making big strides in better meds and surgeries for cancer all the time. Another that keeps me from panicking is that no group of statistics can predict what will happen to an individual. Even if the odds are 100 to 1 against a person surviving a year with a kind of cancer, who's to say you aren't the 1 that survives! So tell your friend to get to the best oncologist (cancer doctor)they can get to and follow the plan they give to the best of their ability. Seize every moment of every day for whatever joy it can provide. And know that's enough. That's all anyone can do.