43 Year Old Wife Diagnosed with Rectal Cancer. I'm very scared.

[mike1965]

In my opinion always good to see oncologist also. In my case surgeon told me I did not need to see oncologist that he believed he removed all the cancer. I went on a wait and see for six months. The surgeon did blood work and scans and said everything was good. I was not comfortable with not seeing an oncologist and saw one he stated I definitely needed surgery. I spoke with another surgeon and he stated get surgery. I ended up getting surgery and it saved my life I went from Stage 1 to Stage 3A with six months of chemo. So I believe the more opinions the better. I pray all goes well with your wife. Remember to question everything that the doctors tell you and be comfortable with your decisions.

[NHMike]

In my opinion always good to see oncologist also. In my case surgeon told me I did not need to see oncologist that he believed he removed all the cancer. I went on a wait and see for six months. The surgeon did blood work and scans and said everything was good. I was not comfortable with not seeing an oncologist and saw one he stated I definitely needed surgery. I spoke with another surgeon and he stated get surgery. I ended up getting surgery and it saved my life I went from Stage 1 to Stage 3A with six months of chemo. So I believe the more opinions the better. I pray all goes well with your wife. Remember to question everything that the doctors tell you and be comfortable with your decisions.

This is the scary part of chemo: how do you know whether or not it's working? For me, the radiation is having an effect on the tumor - I can feel that. But how do I know that the stuff isn't spreading. We don't do scans until after chemo/radiation. That seems to me like a bit of a hole in treatment methodologies unless the earlier blood tests like ImmunoHistoChemistry make it extremely likely that the chemo will work.

[JayNY]

So...we met with the oncologist today. The cancer was staged as "in situ". That was awesome news and made sense based on the EUS determining it to be confined to the superficial mucosa. I had just hoped the pathology report told the same story which it did. At that point the oncologist said theres really no treatment necessary but recommended a colonoscopy followup just as the GI doctor had stated. Then she mentioned its good to have a ct scan as a baseline. My wife responds that she had just gotten one last Friday. The oncologist quickly gets the results faxed over. It stated that something was showing on the liver. She seemed unconcerned saying it is not possible for in situ cancer to spread. Probably benign lesions. Ugh...im just hoping thats all it is so we can move on. One was 2.5cm and two others were under 1cm she said so size wasnt recorded.

[JJH]

My typo. Avastin is same as Bevacizumab - generic name and it is given as IV,
The Tablets are Xeloda - CAPECITABINE

You can correct the typographical error in your original post by logging in and accessing your original post in Edit mode. To do this, log in and click on the link below to display your original post, then click on the little stubby-pencil icon that will appear in the upper right-hand part of the screen in order to go into Edit mode. Then you can change 'Avastin tablets' to 'Xeloda tablets' in the text and Submit the change to correct the error.

http://coloncancersupport.colonclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=58709&p=462473#p462473

[SurvivorsSpouse]

So...we met with the oncologist today. The cancer was staged as "in situ". That was awesome news and made sense based on the EUS determining it to be confined to the superficial mucosa. I had just hoped the pathology report told the same story which it did. At that point the oncologist said theres really no treatment necessary but recommended a colonoscopy followup just as the GI doctor had stated. Then she mentioned its good to have a ct scan as a baseline. My wife responds that she had just gotten one last Friday. The oncologist quickly gets the results faxed over. It stated that something was showing on the liver. She seemed unconcerned saying it is not possible for in situ cancer to spread. Probably benign lesions. Ugh...im just hoping thats all it is so we can move on. One was 2.5cm and two others were under 1cm she said so size wasnt recorded.

CT scans are notorious for showing up "noise." In other words, they find all sorts of benign things and folks move on with life. Generally, a radiologist can tell a met from other lesions (cyst, hemangioma etc) and will call out a lesion suspicious for metastasis, especially at 2.5cm. There is a very characteristic look mets have on CT.

[JayNY]

Thanx.. hoping thats all it is.. I have been unable to find any documentation online of in situ with liver metastases. Im thinking it would be unusually in a cancer with even a T1 depth?

[susie0915]

My original scan showed non specific spots on the liver. The doctors were not concerned. Every scan since then has shown the liver to be normal.