Lymph nodes

[Sams wife]

Ok. I have to ask someone. What does 2 possible mesenteric lymph nodes mean. Pretty sure I know but I want to ask someone (besides drs in front of husband).

[CLD]

Hello. My husband was told he had colon cancer the exact same day as your husband . After surgery on the 14th of Jan., the surgeon came out to the waiting area and told me that in addition to the 5cm tumor they removed in the Sigmoid colon, there was a satellite tumor in the mesentery, that this was serious, and that he would need lots of chemo. She told me he was stage 3C (with 13 /24 lymph nodes positive but that his other organs looked good.). At a follow up appointment, she said that pathology felt the nodule was a lymph node, but that treatment would be the same. He had a clean PET scan and has since had a clean CT. At the next oncology appt., the onc mentioned "advanced cancer" in passing. I thought she meant "locally advanced". However, those words did not leave my mind for a month and at the next appointment I asked her "this is stage 3C, right?" "No, honey, this is a stage 4 cancer. But he has no cancer in his body right now and he has a 60% chance of a cure." When I asked her why it was a 4, all she said was "because of what the surgeon described to me." (In the meantime, Im thinking she described it to me as a 3C!!!) I spent the next week just trying to keep my sh*t together. I have spent HOURS online trying to find out what the mesentery is and why having a nodule / lymph node there is so dangerous. It does not seem to come up on this board too often. You might be the 2nd person who mentioned this situation that I've noticed. After all, the mesentery had to be removed along with the malignant section of colon, so what is the big deal? Its not like its in his liver, lungs, or bones, right? I can say that I still don't really understand why this pushed him into a stage 4 category. Anyhow, everything I found online was very limited, toooooooo technical for me, or stated that this was a stage 3 situation. The best answer I found was on a site called Science Based Medicine by an oncologist named David Gorski. He explained that the mesentery is where the drainage takes place; in other words, this is a high risk situation for cancer to spread. I hope your oncologist does a better job of explaining this situation to you and I hope my post, for what it's worth, might have saved you some time researching this online! Good luck to you.

[jaycey60]

I believe that "2 possible mesenteric lymph nodes" means that there is a chance that cancer exists in 2 of the lymph nodes in the mesentery, which links the organs to the body wall - in this case probably the bowel mesentery, which attaches the intestines to the abdominal wall.

In our case, it was initially described as "lymph nodes up the iliac chain." And that changed the diagnosis from Stage III to Stage IV.

I've since discovered why: any time the cancer spreads outside of the initial organ (in our case, the rectum) that is referred to as metastasis (which simply means that cancer cells have spread outside of the initial location) - and metastasis automatically means Stage IV. And while a spread to liver, lungs, or bones is serious because of the body's need for those organs, spread to lymph nodes is dangerous because lymph can carry cancer to other organs. And nobody likes the idea that the cancer is spreading.

However, malignant lymph nodes can be treated by the same chemo that reduces the main tumor, and they can be removed during surgery (usually with some normal tissue around them, just to make sure all malignancy has been removed). In our case, because there were a bunch of malignant lymph nodes in the rectal, pelvic and abdominal regions, the surgeon is going to remove ALL lymph nodes from those locations. Which kind of freaks me out - I mean, presumably we have lymph nodes there for a reason. However I guess it's better to remove them all just to make sure there's no micro-cancer hiding in one, ready to jump onto a solid organ.

Anyway, hope this is helpful.

[Sams wife]

CLD. I knew there was I reason I was following your posts:). Husband had colonoscopy on bday. They called back the day diagnosed. We knew before butt....
I talked to someone about it (nurse) & she said to ask dr. It was confusing to her too.
Doc said 0/5 lymph nodes. Radiation got the rest.
Surgery Path reprt said (paperworks outside) 2 possible mesenteric. It ends up being 5 possible lymph nodes.
I really think 5 were clear & 5 possible. 1 perineal 1 whatever. I'm really already expecting the outcome you got. I didn't realize it was where the drainage takes place. But I found mesenteric on Internet is part of body.
I will have to ask. They won't explain it better unless you are up their butt asking. We are watching spots on lungs but I only got that off of the scan impressions. Like I told crguy they tell you good parts & hope you don't read rest of the reports. I know there isn't much to do but watch & wait but idk. I can at least make sure they know that I know. Thanks to y'all. Learned a lot here. Way over my head, but a lot is sinking in !!
Everyone says my onc is good. I sure hope so

[Sams wife]

Jaycey. " I believe that "2 possible mesenteric lymph nodes" means that there is a chance that cancer exists in 2 of the lymph nodes in the mesentery"

Me too. Thanks for answers!