Do Not Understand

My father had prostate cancer 1 year ago they removed it nothing left, lymph nodes clear..........Now he was just diagnosed with primary Non Small Cell lung cancer was first stage 1, then they saw a spot on the right lung that looked suspisious even though it didnt light up on pet scan they biopsied it anyways and it is very very small and it is the same adenocarcinoma as the left lung so therefore they diagnosed it as NSCLC Stage IV................how is it stage four when it only went to a small spot in the other lung????

Hi,

I wondered much the same thing.  My mother had a lobectomy to remove her very small tumor.  Later, her cancer returned in what was left of the same lung, but in several places in that lung.  It was not in her other lung, nor in any other place at that time.  We were told stage 4.  Her last staging was 1a.  We were shocked, but it was explained to us that the cancer had metasticized and the staging had more to do with how to treat it, not the size or even location.

 

On 5/23/2008 moparatheart wrote:

My father had prostate cancer 1 year ago they removed it nothing left, lymph nodes clear..........Now he was just diagnosed with primary Non Small Cell lung cancer was first stage 1, then they saw a spot on the right lung that looked suspisious even though it didnt light up on pet scan they biopsied it anyways and it is very very small and it is the same adenocarcinoma as the left lung so therefore they diagnosed it as NSCLC Stage IV................how is it stage four when it only went to a small spot in the other lung????

Any time cancer turns up anywhere from the original location it is considered stage 4 because the cancer has metastasized to another area.  Usually treatment for stage 4 is quite different from stage 1.  Based on what you said, there were probably still some cancer cells left in the body from the previous cancer.  Did your dad have any chemo/radiation after they removed the first cancer?  If not, the cells could have been in his body the whole time and are just becoming large enough to show on the scans. 

lung cancer often met. to lungs, but it can be also a multifocal disease as the effect of the smocking damage to all the pulmonary tissue.

so:

if the first surgery was radical

if pet was completely negative in the whole body's areas

contact a good surgeon if the second tumor/metastasis is resectable