RFA vs Lung met surgery in Germany

[crazylife]

Does anyone know the difference between RFA and the surgery done in Germany?

DH has a few lung mets. He's having one removed, but others they will try to shrink with chemo at some point. Watching them for now to see if they grow. The one that is being ablated did grow.

Seems like if we went to Germany, they would just remove them all, right? Would love any insight.

[peanut_8]

Crazylife,

I'm by no means an expert on the this subject, butt think you're on the right track. They do remove all of them. If I were ever to develop lung mets, it was always in the back of my mind to do go to Germany or London and have them removed.

I think our member Sophy has been to Germany to have mets removed. You can try and search the forum by using her name to pull up old threads on the subject. I think there have been other members that have similar stories but unfortunately don't recall who they are.

Best Wishes,
peanut

[Sophy]

Crazylife - this is a difficult decision and I hope my experience can help.

The surgery done with the lung laser is like an ordinary thoracotomy (large incision, maybe broken ribs) but the tumours are removed with a laser which cuts and cauterises at the same time. This means that instead of cutting the lung with a scalpel which needs at least a 3-4cm margin to be cut out of the lung the laser only needs a 1-2mm margin. Up to 100 mets can be removed as loss of surrounding tissue is minimal, Dr Rolle told me he developed his laser because he could not remove more than 4 mets with traditional surgery. With the lung open to view the surgeon can see and feel the lung, in 40% of cases finding and removing mets not visible on scans and therefore missed by non-invasive procedures. Also the surgery can be repeated if needed.

If you look at this link our amazing friend Maia has brought together many threads and links about the lung laser surgery and also the ADAPT chemo protocol I have been using for nearly three years.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=57644&p=454418&hilit=Maia#p454418

This isn't a certain way to a cure as both CB and Mastan who posted in these threads have died but they both lived longer than with traditional treatment and I have had no further recurrence in the 34 months since my third lung laser surgery.

Sophy