Recurrence to Brain and Lung/lots of questions about treatment.

tarens

My mom was diagnosed in November of 2013 with TNBC. It was less than a CM and she had clean nodes. She was 69 at the time (almost 72 now) and the oncologist wasn't sure that chemo would be that helpful when weighing the risk/benefit. She did do radiation and has been very healthy and active. She has now found 10 small spots on her brain that she had whole brain radiation for and one large mass in her right lung. Interestingly, she had a chest scan in Feb of 2014 (during her breast radiation therapy) that showed a small mass on her right lung that they said was a granuloma (no biopsy though). That spot is exactly where her lung tumor is now. I'm thinking that cancer was already there at the time of her initial breast cancer diagnosis. The cancer in her lung looks clinically like classic lung cancer and nothing like a TNBC that has metastasized to the lung. There have been no results to indicate exactly what kind of cancer is in her lung. They did a test to find out the exact genomic alterations her tumor is expressing (she's in a study) and they could be for breast or lung cancer. They are proceeding as if this is recurrent TNBC (although there is no cancer in her breasts). She is scheduled to start Carboplatin on Thursday with a Parp inhibitor to be added on at some point. Does anyone have any advice? My mom wants quality of life and not endless treatments that aren't going to be effective but never gets to discuss this with the doctors. They told her today that there are very few side effects from Carobplatin besides hair loss (already gone) and low WBC's. I think it might be much more involved with that. Her mother and sister both died from lung cancer and I have a feeling this cancer in her lung that spread to the brain isn't TNBC at all and that it was a separate lung cancer. Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated.

Bestbird

I am very sorry to hear about your mother's situation, and it is very loving of you to reach out on her behalf.

Without knowing what type (if any) cancer is in her lung, it is not feasible to offer advice. That said, she can always seek a second professional opinion, which sounds like a very viable next step.

With best wishes.

tarens

Thank you for your response. It's definitely cancer in her lung and its in her lymph nodes in that area (as well as her brain). They want the port in Wednesday and want to start the carboplatin on Thursday. So hard to know what the right thing to do is when you have 2 days to figure it out. Going to call her oncologist tomorrow to get more answers on actual benefit of chemo and how it will affect her QOL vs give her more time. The assumption from the doctors is always "start as soon as possible" and not "is this something you want to do?"....