Prayers up.
I would guess that her cancer metastasized to the bone, which contributed greatly to her “ rib fractures”. I dont think the old bird is gonna make it much after the new year.
Any follow-up chemo would be too hard on a fragile person of her age. If I were she, I probably wouldn’t go through chemo either.
“I’m surprised there wouldn’t be follow up Chemo but I’m not a doctor and slept at home last night but I do not recall ever seeing her smoking but I do note that the nodules were found to be malignant.
Prayers up.”
From what I understand with lung cancer after surgery the risk of recurrence never returns to zero, so not doing follow up Chemo is basically rolling the dice.
Lung cancer is the greatest number of cancers worldwide. Among smokers AND NON SMOKERS. My mom died of it 14 YEARS after she quit smoking.
They are likely metastatic from one of her other cancers. 2 lung primaries would be vanishingly rare
They might be concerned that she's too weak for chemotherapy to be tolerated by her body.
The type of cancer associated with smoking is small cell carcinoma, which is inoperable. It sounds like these were discrete tumors, so a different type of cancer.
CC
I wrote a long medical post about this and deleted it because it violated my rule against commenting on actual patients without knowing the facts.
But, applied to an imaginary patient, the MSKCC statement doesn’t really make sense and doesn’t conform to their own patterns of practice, that I have some familiarity with.
We aren’t going to get to know everything about this case for a while.
I do think that virtually all 85 year olds with possible pathologic rib fractures, lung metastases from one of two primaries, and the after effects of a lobectomy, would retire from any position of heavy responsibility.