Node in chest area

[Alex_G]

Hello all,

I have radiation treatment starting today. 2 days ago I got into hospital with chest pain and my doctor sent me to full CT scan. CT scan didn’t find anything with heart. Finally they found duodenitis but… they found node in chest area.
I told my radiation oncologist right away and he canceled radiation therapy for now.
First CT scan was done for abdominal and pelvic area. I’m just surprised why my urologist didn’t order full CT scan! Why none of the oncologists (regular and radiation oncologist) didn’t ask me for full CT scan.
Now they will check images and probably will send me to pet scan and going to decide between radiation and chemo.
I’m lost with all these procedures. It just doesn’t make any sense

Alex

P.S Classical seminoma

[cbuysse]

Alex my understanding is that they don't order a full CT scan because Chest CT's are too sensitive and pick up stuff( for lack of a better medical term) that may be nothing such as scar tissue in the lungs that may appear as a node but is really just scar tissue from a past illness or something along those lines. I hope that is some help as to why he didn't order the Chest CT originally. I think I remember past posts on this site that talked about this same subject I will search.

[IowaBrian]

My first scan was from neck to groin well I should say they didn't go high enough and the ONC ordered a chest ct that went higher then what the hospital scanned. Sounds like they just didn't scan high enough the first time. the good news is they did the test and will come up with the best treatment for you, which is what you want.
Good Luck
Brian

[Karen]

Alex,
I think sometimes things happen for a reason....your chest pain got that node identified. Seminoma follows a very predictable path to the abdominal lymph nodes first. Brian's right, figure out what this is and get the best treatment. No sense going through radiation to turn right around and have chemo. I'm sure this is hard for you right now...hang in there and let us know what the PET shows. It'll be OK, just might take a different road to get there.

[Alex_G]

I just got call from my radiation oncologist.
He told me that he reviewed my CT scan and doctor who wrote CT scan report actually wrong. That he measured node in larger size (1.6 cm) and this is wrong. Smaller size is less than 1 cm. And there are 2 nodes in this area and may be he measured both nodes accidentally.
He told me that we should ignore this for now and continue with abdominal nodes radiation.
Hm.. I don't know what to think.