Father has just been diagnosed with secondary liver cancer

[Lindaw]

Hi there,

Still in shock. Father recently went for routine Prostate bloods which showed up an anomaly. Then he had scans which showed lesions in all lobes of his liver which they have indicated is metastases (primary currently unknown). Bone scans indicated no spread to the bones. He was not exhibiting any symptoms of sickness at all. We have a biopsy this week then the Oncologist the week after.  What I wanted to know was what is the  likely journey from here ? Is there any possibility it may not be secondary cancer and they are only using biopsy to confirm or are they using this to try and find the primary. What is average prognosis for him given the above info ?  Really stressed and upset TIA

[Budgie]

Hi Lindaw,

Try not to worry too much.  I know that's easier said than done, however, it makes life so much more miserable if you worry all the time.  

They will be doing the biopsy primarily to find the cause of the mets.  The results will determine the treatment that will be given depending on what the primary is.   

Regarding prognosis - everyone is different, and reacts to treatments differently, so really, no-one can give an accurate prognosis.  Even if doctors say people don't have long, or have "x" amount of time, take that with a grain of salt.  While they may give a ballpark figure, it depends alot on the person & their will to survive.

I don't know anything about liver cancer, or what treatments are available for it, so I can't help in that respect, but I hope I've put your mind at ease somewhat, even just a little bit.  Take care.

Budgie

[Lindaw]

Thanks for taking the time to respond Budgie. Really appreciate it. Trying to be positive and know it will be important to be positive around him as well. Going into what changes do we make mode....food, mindset, questions etc

[looker_labs]

don't worry too - I don't know much about his specific case.

All lobes?

what were the PSA #'s by the way

take a look at the scans - they are high contrast i'm sure and

should be easier to detect visually than a broken bone.

this looks large but can still be ok

They can transplant livers you know.  The biggest concern is vascular involvement.

sometimes 'bunny ears' can indicate metastases

also something that looks like that

sometimes cirrhosis looks like multiple tumors

usually there will be some pain in poking the cirrhosis or tumor

on the right front or back

with two fingers or even by the sternum.

Lack of pain indicates an early diagnosis.  Do get a look at the scan. 

dialysis might be indicated as a stopgap between surgery and transplantation

if I recall, positive outcomes in hepatology is around 86%

[Lindaw]

Thankyou. There are mets in the liver at PeT scan nownindicates either stomach cancer or oesphageal cancer asbthe primary

[looker_labs]

Ok,  I may have said in other threads that I once worked in

an oncology center.  I did clinical pathways (SIBEM II) and

regardless of what type and where it started the issue is

to reduce the total tumor mass.

There are so many good surgeons who can remove cancers from

upper GI and the aforemensioned treatments.

Once I had a case where a guy had 17 tumors and they

got them all in a couple or a few surgeries.

Of course our patients would sometime have recurrence in

a 5 or 10 year period, but even then, being especially watchfull

recurrence was not as severe as the initial cancer.

I would list the procedure as mri or ct by CPT code

and enter a diagnosis code of 22.x to a higher 22.9 ICD code

and the computer would find other cases where 22.9 had a treatments

with the greatest effectiveness.  But I can sort of tell already that it would

come up with the name of a couple of surgeons and some drugs

both for the attending physician.