Breast cancer and Adenocarcinoma in Lungs

cancerdaughter

My 81 year old mother (living in Florida and I'm in Indiana) was diagnosed with breast cancer in late May and had a lumpectomy on June 12th.  The sentinal node was positive so the Dr. removed 15 additional nodes and 2 of those 15 were positive.  Oncologist then wanted her to do a PET scan and there were 5 lesions that lit up on her lungs - after TWO lung biopsies (first was "inconclusive") they have determined that the lung lesions are NOT breast cancer, which is what they were expecting) but instead, it is adenocarcinoma.  At first I thought this might be better news because it meant it wasn't Stage 4 Metestatic Breast Cancer, but I really don't know what to think....  Oncologist is on vacation so we can't meet with him until August 13th and I'm trying to find out if anyone knows anything about these 2 things happening at once - seems a little too coincidental to be just 2 unrelated cancers.  If anyone has ever heard of this, please chime in.  I was just there for 2 1/2 weeks through all the testing, etc. and wasn't planning on going back until she started chemo but now I don't know WHAT they are going to do!

Cori221

So sorry I didn't see your post earlier. Hope any information I provide is still helpful.  I am a breast cancer survivor, diagnosed in July of 2010.  I have recently been diagnosed with Adenocarcinoma in the right lower lobe of my lung. The nodule was discovered while undergoing a heart scan so might have been there at the time of my initial breast cancer diagnosis. I only had a single nodule and have since had surgery to remove my lower right lobe.

As you may have discovered the diagnosis for lung cancer seems to be quite a bit more difficult than breast cancer since biopsies often can't be done and even when done they can prove incorrect. Since the lung is more difficult than the breast to get at it brings up a whole set of different concerns than those going through the diagnostic process of breast cancer.

I have found a discussion forum on lung cancer located at www.inspire.com to be very helpful.  I have posted there and found a number of women who have both lung and breast cancer and they are more than willing to share their stories.

I hope things are going well for your mom.  Please keep us updated.

Sending warm healing thoughts to you and your mom,

Cori