back pain and cancer
My mom complains of low back pain. She has had cancer in both lungs and brain removed. Should I worry?
He said this has been happening for a couple of years.
MD Medical Oncologist response depends on the lower back pain, how it can be severe. Your GP / Oncologist should be aware of this development, but not necessarily an emergency. We know he has had lung cancer that has spread through the bloodstream to the brain. We hope that the cancer is in other places too. The spread to the bones is common, so that lung cancer could be in your lumbar spine. If so, who has been there for many months or even years – not only quickly spread there. But back pain is very common for benign reasons as well. This could easily be unrelated to their cancer history. The key is to evaluate this new problem. I suspect that has had scan bone in the past. Maybe a bone scan would be indicated comparison. Survey radiographs of the lumbar spine or CT examinations could also be done to test this area. It depends on your clinical situation we can not judge from here. Your doctors should be able to resolve this for you in the next or two weeks (unless acute low back pain severe). It usually comes down to a matter of palliative radiotherapy to decrease the discomfort "SI" is seen as metastatic cancer on radiographs or CT. If it turns out to be unrelated to their malignancy, which would be treated as the many people who have fewer problems back. Sorry, I can say that this is – benign or cancer-related. Added note – I just saw you added the story that her back pain has been there for years. If you have not changed in years, probably not his cancer. She must have had a bone scan when the original lung cancer was evaluated. The conclusion is that "early" diagnosis is not particularly useful in the situation of a known metastatic lung cancer. In early additional treatment of metastases is of great benefit in overall survival. It is a matter of time provide the best quality and comfort.
