The Colon Club

Hi all,
Anyone had any iliac lymph node enlargement showing on CT or MRI that ended up being just a reactive lymph node or benign.

Its my first time posting here, although i was following this forum since my husband( 49 years old) was first diagnosed with Rectal Cancer(April 2018). Since then, he had 28 sessions of radiation along with oral Xeloda, in August had surgery to remove his entire rectum(no bag thank God). Recovered well ,except some major bathroom issues.
According to pathology report, was staged as stage 2 (T3N0M0), moderate to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, 0 of 15 lymph nodes, no perineural or lymhovascular invasion identified, clean margins, pre surgery chemo response rate 3( his tumor shrunk from 6 cm to 2.2). Both his surgeon and oncologist were very optimistic and would mention that his chances of being cured is great. We were so happy and excited and could not believe that we almost beat this disease. Got his port placed and was ready for his 5FU until we got his CT scan result early this month which showed indeterminate hepatic lesion and enlarged 9 mm common iliac lymph node. He then got an mRI for better view which showed clean liver but the enlarged iliac lymph node is still there.
Our Oncologist is not sure if its a metastases or just reactive lymph node after surgery and will most likely perform biopsy. He said this is very uncommon and will discuss my husband'ss case during the board meeting to get the opinion of other doctors.

We are in a total shock as we would never expect such drastic turn. I am worried and can't stop crying. We have young kids, girls 8 and 14 and i can't imagine our lives without him or raising them alone..

For whatever it's worth, I am continually told that my husband's 13 mm central mesenteric lymph node is nothing.

I’m so sorry you are going through this, too.

We are in a similar situation right now where we had a clean CT but an MRI showed an enlarged internal iliac node. We’re getting a PET scan on Tuesday to see if it “lights up.”

Our situation is slightly different in than our findings is at the time of diagnosis so it affects our treatment/surgery plan.

What did the doctors say would be the plan for dealing with this node should it come back malignant?

Praying for you.

pantufla wrote:For whatever it's worth, I am continually told that my husband's 13 mm central mesenteric lymph node is nothing.

Thanks for the reply. How are they able to determine that its benign. Did they biopsy the node?

Thank you very much Punky44. According to his oncologist his staging will jump from Stage 2 to Stage 4 and he will need Avastin in addition to Folfox.

I am praying its not malignant....

I will keep praying too!

Echoing another in this thread I have an extremely similar situation, last MRI showed a lymph node at 5MM near the common iliac right bifurcation. Looking forward to any replies from the community on this.

Punky44 wrote:I will keep praying too!

Thank you Punky 44. Prayers for your mom.

my husbands lliac nodes were all negative when they did the pathology on them after removal. They all lit up on the Pet scan. His cancer was in his cecum, and when they removed it along with his ascending colon, they removed all those nodes in the lliac chain that lit up on the pet scan at the same time. None of them were cancerous. They surmised that they were enlarged do to infection or something else.

I do hope it's they same with you,

Debbie

Deb m wrote:my husbands lliac nodes were all negative when they did the pathology on them after removal. They all lit up on the Pet scan. His cancer was in his cecum, and when they removed it along with his ascending colon, they removed all those nodes in the lliac chain that lit up on the pet scan at the same time. None of them were cancerous. They surmised that they were enlarged do to infection or something else.

I do hope it's they same with you,

Debbie

Oh my God. Thank you. This makes me feel a little better
This also happened with my husband before his surgery his local colonic lymph nodes were showing enlarged on his pre surgery CT but after removal they were all clean
So i want to think that my husband has very sensitive reactive lymph nodes. But you know with cancer, you never know

Hi Nohogirl.

The doc has not done anything. He says it has been there since the beginning and not to worry about it. DH went to two radiologists for the ct scan due to a change in insurance. One said it was 1.0 cm and the other one said it was 1.3 cm. Doc said he thought it was the same size and not to worry. It still does bother me. He has another scan next month.