Metastasize

Question: How many months after treatment would breast cancer metastasize to other parts of the body? If you make a graph and number months after treatment which month number would get most of the hits lets say on a scatter gram? So if it is typically 18 months after treatment would that be typically when most cancers reoccur? I am trying to stay positive but I want to also make these times her best.

Answer: Dave, there is no answer for this. I saw many hundreds of women with breast cancers. There was no month in my experience that would show a concentration of "hits' on a scatter diagram. I've seen metastatic disease show up clinically one year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years and even 20 years after the original primary cancer was treated. No two people were the same. Obviously - when it does recur - the metastatic disease had been there all of the time but had been dormant or too small to be clinically evident. A billion breast cancer cells makes a tumor mass only ~1cm in diameter. We cannot see a million residual cells on any scans or imaging studies. So when follow up scans are all negative - that is terrific - but there could still be millions of residual cells somewhere in the body that we just cannot see because they are too small to show up. The chances improve with each passing disease free year, but these women are never really out of the woods entirely. We often use the five year disease free interval as a bench mark, but that is not always safe with breast carcinomas. If metastatic breast carcinoma does eventually show up, it must have been there since the original diagnosis. You (you and your wife) went through adjuvant chemotherapy hoping to knock out any cells that remained. You didn't know for sure if they were there are not. You don't know whether the chemotherapy succeeded in eradicating every last cell if there actually were residual cells that had spread via the bloodstream. With adjuvant chemotherapy we are treating disease we cannot see on the chance that it may be there and might be reponsive to the chosen combination of chemotherapy drugs. We make a best "guess" based on many studies trying to find what gives people the best chance for a long disease free survival. When metastatic disease eventually does show up, it is just that it has grown large enough to finally be detected. We have to remember that malignancies always begin as microscopic disease. Added note - $375,000 and counting - WOW ! ! Costs have truly gotten way out of hand. It was much less in the 1980's and 1990's when I was in practice - perhaps one third of that amount for the treatment you describe. Too many people are taking excessive profits these days, and I don't mean just the doctors. Drug company profit taking is just too much. Health insurance company profit taking is also excessive. We must have health care reimbursement reform in the USA. Medicine should not be such a high profit business - it shouldn't be a business at all. These are people's lives we are dealing with. $375,000 is ridiculous.

Question: What are the five most common organ tissues to metastasize to the jaw bone? This is for an Oral Diagnosis class in Dental school and im having a little trouble locating the answer

Answer: The five most common organ tissues to metastasize to the jaw bone are: liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, and prostate gland cancer. My info was found in ten different med. articles, all of which spoke of metastatized bone, and primary cancer sources.

Question: Can a person with stage 1 breast cancer have it return years later and metastasize? I have reported Adolf myself. He is a ignorant bastard.

Answer: Anything can happen. But if you stay up to date with regular screening, the odds of it getting that far are a lot less.

Question: What causes cancer to unexpectedly spread (metastasize)? For example, say there's a person who's had cancer for about 10 years, gets a lot of treatment over this time and the cancer goes into remission and seems to be no longer dangerous (is in remission for say 5 or 6 years) But then all of a sudden it flairs up again without warning, and becomes larger and more harmful than it's ever been before (terminal). What would cause cancer to do that? Are there any specific factors that contributed to its metastasizing?

Answer: In the scenario you describe it really isn’t unexpected. Everyone hopes it doesn’t happen, but it is a known possibility. Once cancer has spread to the lymph nodes it usually is. The lymphatic system is like a big train system with stops all over the body. Once a cancer cell hops onboard it can get off anywhere and start a new tumor. It must reproduce millions of cells before we are able to detect it. When a person is on chemo the drugs are sent throughout the body hoping they will find every single one of these cancer cells and kill them, but we have no way of knowing if they actually did and it only takes a single cell to survive for the patient’s cancer to recur. Sometimes these cells are only injured and may not reproduce as fast as before. If a cancer cell does survive it usually has built up a defense against the chemo used against it and therefore different drugs are used the following time. There are more than 200 diseases classified as cancer and we understand some better than others. The factors that may have contributed to its metastasizing are not completely understood. For most cancers we do know what characteristics the cancer presents are more likely to recur and treatment is adjusted accordingly. For as high tech and advanced we think we are there are more things about the human body we don’t understand than those we do. We are very remarkable creatures and our bodies are able to adapt to various conditions causing the variables to change. You must also understand it has only been since the early 1970s that we have had an organized effort to treat, understand and cure cancer.

Question: where does osteomyelitis metastasize? i know that it can metastasize to the brains and lungs, are there any other sites?

Answer: Osteomyelitis, is an infection. Not a cancer. And yes it can spread via bone marrow and blood, but you can take antibiotics for it. Are you talking about osteosarcoma?

Question: Can oxygen forced into the body by a metabolic chamber cause cancer to metastasize?

Answer: Try this search I pulled up the search for you on doctoryourself.com it looks promising but extensive. Good Luck! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&domains=www.doctoryourself.com&sitesearch=www.doctoryourself.com&q=oxidizing++cancer&spell=1

Question: Why do medulloblastomas metastasize to other parts of the brain or spinal cord?

Answer: There is a good article here regarding why cancer spreads: http://www.healthcastle.com/cancer_general_mets.shtml Can cancer spread? How? There are several ways in which cancers can spread: They directly invade adjacent tissues. They enter the lymphatic stream and are carried to lymph nodes. Cancer cells pass through the blood stream to other parts of the body. http://www.indiacancer.org/faq/ Lots of info about medulloblastomas here: http://www.emedicine.com/neuro/topic624.htm Cells from an intracranial growth (e.g. medulloblastoma) may be seeded into the CSF and form deposits on other brain surfaces or in the spinal canal. http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/Radtherapy/html/spreading.html

Question: How does skin cancer metastasize? Travels through what parts? How?

Answer: Cells move around in the body to their rightful place as they have proteins on the outside of them to tell the immune system where they belong. The immune system kills cells with the wrong proteins in the wrong place. An example of that is a stomach cell in the kidney. The immune system destroys the cell when it is in the wrong organ. When the cell loses these markers they travel freely, divide and create more of themselves in the form of a tumor. They are also lacking the correct proteins that signal for the immune system to clean them up when they become senescent (can no longer divide)

Question: Has anybody had a dog live long when diagnosed with metastasize mammary carcinoma? My lovely girl had a operation to remove a lump last week in her breast. She had not been ill at all and the lump was very small. We only noticed the problem as her teat started to bleed. I got her results two days ago and they say it is a metastasize mammary carcinoma. Bonnie is only five and was spayed when she was about 3 years. The operation has really been hard on her and us as she was so well before.My vet says it will travel to her lungs and theres nothing we can do.Please let me know if you have had this experience.I cant bear the thought of losing my girl. I will let her go when im advised to. I would never let my girl suffer for me.Apart from being sore where she had the op she is fine. eating well and still wanting to go for walks.Even playing a little with her toys.Just have no idea how long she will be well for.

Answer: We have a yorkie that is still alive, but it hasn't been that long. She was used as a breeder and when she wouldn't get preganant anymore they dumped her and we got her. Yes they were breeding her and selling her pups with tumors bigger than her on her underbelly.

Question: Why do tumours metastasize to local lymph nodes?

Answer: Lymph is an almost-clear fluid that drains waste from cells. This fluid travels in vessels to the Lymph Nodes, small bean-shaped structures that filter out unwanted substances, such as cancer cells and bacteria, out of the fluid. Lymph Nodes can become filled with cancer cells. The spread of cancer to other sites is called metastasis.

Question: why are cancers that metastasize more dangerous than cancers that do not?

Answer: The metastases spread to vital organs such as the liver or the brain. Typically it is the metastases that cause death, rarely the original tumor. The major exception is a brain tumor. They rarely metastasize. But the brain tumor itself spreads, invading vital brain areas, causing death.

Question: Brain tumors usually metastasize only within the central nervous system.? Brain tumors usually metastasize only within the central nervous system. a. True b. False

Answer: Well, high grade Astros/GBMs do generally metastasize within the CNS... so I'd go with Truth.

Question: why isit that cancer i very rarely metastasize in heart considering blood pass thru the heart? and cancer is spred thru lymph and blood flow

Answer: Actually, when autopsies are done on cancer patients, metastases to the heart (specifically the pericardium, or lining of the heart) frequently are found.

Question: where are some common sites that secondary lung cancer can metastasize from?

Answer: Lisa, I am a cancer survivor myself and I know that lung cancer can spread from the breast, liver or bone.cruelladeville47

Question: why do tumours metastasize to local lymph nodes?

Answer: because the lymphatics drain the extracellular fluid, and is filtered at the nodes. cancer cells migrate and stop in the nodes where they proliferate.

Question: Would a benign tumor metastasize? and how/why does a typical cancer cell spread?

Answer: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A benign tumor is a tumor that lacks all three of the malignant properties of a cancer. Thus, by definition, a benign tumor: does not grow in an unlimited, aggressive manner does not invade surrounding tissues does not metastasize Common examples of benign tumors include moles and uterine fibroids. The term "benign" implies a mild and nonprogressive disease, and indeed, many kinds of benign tumor are harmless to the health. However, some neoplasms which are defined as 'benign tumors' because they lack the invasive properties of a cancer, may still produce negative health effects. Examples of this include tumors which produce a "mass effect" (compression of vital organs such as blood vessels), or "functional" tumors of endocrine tissues, which may overproduce certain hormones (examples include thyroid adenomas, adrenocortical adenomas, and pituitary adenomas). Benign tumors typically are encapsulated, which inhibits their ability to behave in a malignant manner. Nonetheless, many types of benign tumors have the potential to become malignant and some types, such as teratoma, are notorious for this. Read more about benign tumors and cancer at the below sources.

Question: my mother has cancer in the throat area that one doctor has said already metastasize in both lymp nodes? he said it's papillary cancer, stage four. he said it is slow growing, but we saw that in a matter of 5 months, it had really grown considerably. the doctor did not advise surgery anymore because of the risk re.: age (she's 73). now my mother is in the US and the doctors there said that it has to be taken out, otherwise it will choke her. she's scheduled fo MRI on the 24th and will then proceed to surgery. ny question is which doctor is correct?

Answer: Papillary cancer is the most common of the thyroid cancers. So this is what I found: Yes, surgery is the main treatment. Thyroid cancer Treatment Date updated: April 04, 2005 Content provided by MayoClinic.com Surgery is the main treatment for most types of thyroid cancer, but other therapies may vary, depending on the type of thyroid cancer you have. Papillary and follicular thyroid cancers The best type of surgery for follicular and papillary thyroid cancers was once a matter of debate. Now most experts agree that the optimal treatment is near-total thyroidectomy - an operation that removes practically the entire thyroid with the exception of small rims of tissue around the parathyroid glands to reduce the risk of parathyroid damage. If you have enlarged lymph nodes as a result of thyroid cancer, your operation may be extended to remove the affected lymph nodes. In some cases, this may mean exploring and removing enlarged lymph nodes on both sides of your neck. Cancer is less likely to return or spread after thyroidectomy than after less complete operations, and in experienced hands, the risks of the surgery are low. Good luck, had cancer twice, so my blessings go out to you.

Question: What is the expected life span of endometrial cancer which has metastasized to the lungs and brain? My mom has been diagnosed last May with endometrial cancer and underwent hysterectomy and radiation therapy. Just recently, we found out that it has metastasized to the lungs and brain. It breaks our heart to see her suffer much but at this time, there really is no cure available. She is now undergoing palliative radiation treatments to help manage the pain. Just wanted to have an idea how much time we have left with her?

Answer: Wow. This is rare and very unfortunate. We are sorry for you in this difficult time. Here's data looking at people in similar situations from a 2003 Canadian study. "Between January 1991 and March 2003, there were 1295 women referred to the London Regional Cancer Center with the diagnosis of endometrial cancer, and eight of these women (0.6%) developed brain metastases. Treatment and clinical outcomes were analyzed. Three patients had no other evidence of systemic disease, while five had disseminated disease. Four patients had a single brain metastasis, while four had multiple lesions. Seven patients received whole brain radiation therapy in addition to systemic steroids, of which six had temporary improvement or resolution in symptoms. Median survival following diagnosis of brain metastases was 3.5 months." This study of almost 1300 women with endometrial cancers found only 8 who developed brain involvement. I did not see a person like this in 20 years as a cancer specialist doctor. Their experience with the 3 to 4 month survival is not a prediction - since it is based on only 8 people. Doctors can never predict survival months ahead of time. When it gets down to the last days, it is relatively easy for experienced nurses and doctors to see the end coming - but family members can see that too. You will know when things are headed downhill. Enjoy the good time as much as possible. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WG6-4C0TD88-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=978008158&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a224796b99ddb04c54434c46aa78a7b5

Question: What is the difference between metastasized brain cancer and cancer that started in the brain? My mother had lung cancer a year ago and although it has not returned, she now has a tumor in her brain the size of a dime. It is cancerous .... so what is the prognosis and what is the difference between this type of brain cancer (where it originated in the lungs) and brain cancer that originiates in the brain. Also, what is the prognosis?

Answer: Cancer originating in a particular organ for the first time is called Primary neoplasm. Metastasis is its secondary spread through blood or lymph. Prognosis really depends on histological type of the cancer but metastasis generally requires more aggressive treatment in the form of chemo & radio because it is wide-spread. My best wishes are with your mother and you as her family in the battle against this cancer.

Question: When cancer metastasizes, are you diagnosed with cancer again or just that it spread? I asked a question last night about my mom being diagnosed 6 times. She had breast cancer in both breasts, 10 years apart, and they both spread to numerous areas. An answerer said she wouldn't have been diagnosed 6 times, just 2 with it spreading. I know that her lung, bone, liver and colon cancer is a result of the breast cancer but don't know what to call it besides being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer again. Can someone please clarify this?

Answer: I’m the one who answered your question yesterday. Breast cancer does not spread to the contralateral breast unless it is inflammatory breast cancer. Although you did not mention what kind of breast cancer she has I suspect it is ductal carcinoma. She has two cancers, one in each breast. Each time her breast cancer is found in a new location it is not a new diagnosis it is progression of her original disease. If you want to know the correct terminology it is bilateral breast cancer metastatic to the liver, colon, lungs and bone or bilateral stage 4 breast cancer. Unfortunately it is not unusual for breast cancer to metastisize 10 years or more after the original diagnosis.