thyroid cancer's spread to lung nd spine..plzz help - Cancer: Thyroid Message Board

anna g · 04-18-2009, 09:14 AM

Hi all of you,
My mom had her total thyroidectomy(for papllary carcinoma with follicular variance) in August 2006.She had no major symptoms , just some swelling in her neck..After the surgery she had been quite regular with her RAI scans and nothing came up in those scans..But she started having some pain in her lumbar spine and shoulder from december last year..We didn't take it seriously and she was put on painkillers.But a week back , the pain worsened and she was admitted in the hospital where she took A CT scan which revealed lesions in liver and lumbar spine..Today she had a PET scan which revealed cancer in one lobe of her lung and lumber spine and some in her shoulder.The doctor has scheduled a biopsy of lung to confirm if its thyroid cancer..She is 53 years of age..I would plzz like to know if anybody of you have had this experience..What are the prognosis??What are the treatment options and survival rates...??I m really worried about her..
Plzz do rply

Anna

Reece · 04-19-2009, 12:28 PM

Anna,

So sorry for your mom and what she's going thru. I had thyroid cancer, and I thought that pappillary mostly spreads in the neck, so that sounds terrible that she has it in her spine. My mom has breast that spread to the spine, and breast cancer is far more active than thyroid, and she's still here 5 years later, which is great, and should give you hope so much more for your mom with thyroid which is so slow growing.

There is somebody on the thyroid board who has had follicular thyroid cancer in his rib---that was 3-4 years ago, he's still around and healthy, and he has a spot in his lung, and he went to a good cancer hospital and they are putting him on a clinical trial.

Make sure your mom gets very professional care, with experienced doctors, and I hope she does well, and will be thinking of her.