My mum just had a surgery 3 days ago to remove a colon cancer at the caecum. CT scan showed that it had not spread to other organs (No distant metastasis). Histopathology finding: Infiltrating moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma. The colorectal surgeon said whether the lymph nodes were affected or not would be confirmed after surgery and samples sent for testing. So we were hoping it would be a T3N0M0 type of cancer.

After surgery, I read surgeon’s operative findings: 1) Ca Cecum cT3N1M0, 2) No peritoneal seedlings, 3) Nodes present at right colon masentery, and 4) No ascites.

My questions:
1) Prior to pathology report, can the surgeon confirm the lymph nodes are infected?
2) My mum is 80 years old. If confirmed T3N1M0 and chemotherapy is required, should she go for it given her old age?
3) What is the survival rate with T3N1M0 surgically removed but no chemotherapy done?

Any help in enlightening me and clearing my doubts would be very much appreciated. Thanks

After a textbook pregnancy and vaginal delivery 11 weeks ago, my wife has had a lot of pain in various places. Since, most of the pain has gone away except three areas of her abdomen which have instead increased in pain. One area is on her right side in sort of a "C" shape and is constant and sharp. The opposite side has a similar pain that comes and goes. Lastly, she has soreness all across the top of her bladder. A crude diagram is shown here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6830281/WhereItHurts.jpg

Three weeks ago her OB prescribed her Hydrocodone 5/500mg and told her the pain would subside as the others did. Last Friday she was scheduled for a rectal CT scan since the pain still only increased and the Hydrocodone was having no apparent effect. Tuesday when she called for the results, her doctor informed her that nothing abnormal was found but to check in to the hospital so they can better address her pain.

The doctor initially said her blood test showed increased levels of sediment which could indicate infection so he put her on an IV antibiotic of Doxycycline and a Dilaudid PCA for the pain. That day she was fairly pain free and was able to sleep. The plan was to wait out the antibiotics and see if the pain subsided. Wednesday she was taken off the PCA and given Hydrocodone again. Her pain returned with full force and after many hours of frustration and begging for pain relief her doctor decided to put her back on the PCA, but with Morphine, and scheduled an exploratory laparoscopic surgery for Thursday but first wanted a second opinion from a colleague. That doctor examined her results and gently pushed on her abdomen before deciding that she didn’t want to subject my wife to any surgery just yet.

Since the regular doctor will be unavailable until Monday he had the OB doctor on call assess her. She said that both she and our regular doctor had discussed the case extensively and that clinically my wife is stable. They believe that the pain is being caused by a muscular problem in her still recovering abdomen. So, she was taken back off the PCA and instead given Hydrocodone 7.5/750mg and an abdominal binder pending consultation with a general surgeon, which we were told, would not be available until Monday.

The oral pain medicine still had no apparent effect and since she was told she would not be provided any stronger medication she decided she would rather suffer at home and schedule a general surgeon consultation ourselves. She was released last night with the Hydrocodone 7.5/750mg, Methocarbamol 500mg, and Metronidazole 500mg.

We live in a small town in Texas without many other options at this point in time. I will be scheduling the consultation first thing Monday morning and have told her we will travel to a larger city if he is unable to remedy the situation. Her doctor has 45+ years of experience and will be retiring in two weeks so this adds to the desperation.

If she does in fact have a muscular problem that will go away in time I fear the meantime. She has trouble sleeping and when she isn’t all she can do is cry, moan, and writhe on the bed. She’s afraid if the pain gets worse and we have to go to the ER they will still be unable to handle her pain. I am looking for any route to pursue in an effort to relieve my wife’s pain. Any advice will be much appreciated.

Ok so this started a little over a month ago. It started with a tooth ache, then my lower abdomen started bothering me, two days later, I was in and out of the bathroom about 6 times in two hours feeling like I was going to have diarrhea or throw up. I went to the dentist because I though it had something to do with my tooth, which he said I was just grinding my teeth. So I went to the doctor two days later, and he said it was just intestinal cramping. It was still bothering me two days later, but it was like a dull ache with my stools being all over the place. ie. loose, diarrhea, excess mucus in them. So I went back again and he sent me to have a CT scan and X-Ray of my abdomen, which all came back negative. So he then sent me to see a specialist on May 19th, I went to him, and he gave me some Donnaltal (sp?) and said to come back in a month if it isn’t any better. Well it hasn’t gotten any worse, but it hasn’t really gotten a lot better, I bought some Bennefiber and have been taking that, and trying to make sure I get enough fiber into my diet for about two weeks now. Well sometimes when I wipe I see like little specs of what look light orange, or maybe even light red, but pretty sure it’s light orange specs in my stool or on the toilet paper (no bigger then maybe a grain of Kosher salt) Saturday and today my stool smelled real bad. Wondering if maybe this is Colon Cancer, IBS, or maybe just IBS with anxiety. not sure I can wait another two weeks to go see the specialist again. Again I am a 23 year old male, who is overweight but working on changing that once I figure out what this is.
I’ve also had blood test for Diabetes, Kidney, and Liver Function. Urine test were negative too.
Keep leaving stuff out, sometimes it kind of looks like there is undigested food in my stool.

she says that brain tumor is hereditary disease
the "nerve center Suraksi and Oncology" at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Deborah Blumenthal, called families with patients suffering from brain cancer to inform the doctors interested in undergoing a medical routine. Previous studies revealed that cancers of the breast, colon and prostate transmitted from one patient to another hereditary
The study was based on a database obtained by the research team from the University of Utah in Salt City, Lake States, about a large number of cases of brain cancer in the United States, also followed the medical records of three generations of patients at least, and for ten generations when families lived in
1800
())))))))))))))(((((((((()))))))))))))))))((
so according to israeli researcher brain tumor is genetic
what do you say
((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
also she asked the people with brain tumor in there families
to ask for head ct scan if they have any symptoms
(((((()))))))
peace from me—–israeli girl
note i think shes talking about primary brain tumors
not tumor that spread to the brain i think
peace from me israeli girl
a friend of my dad died of brain tumor at age 48
with the same location his dad had it
so i think she correct
if shes wrong
why a friend of my dad died of brain tumor at age 48
with the same location his dad had it

maybe shes right
maybe your are right
i dont khnow
but
im soo happy that i got new friends like you
thanks again
from what i khnow he and his dad had the same type of brain tumor
but maybe its Coincidence
maybe the researcher correct
we cant khnow
thanks again
april and tiredmt nice to meet you again
and i will be soo happy to see you here in israel

i get a lot of bleeding and a lot of pain in my left side and rectal areas going up to my lower back. my first gi doctor found proctitis low done and six weeks after he did a colonoscopy he did a sigmoidoscopy and told me everything looks better but i told him i still had pain and bleeding after a year of calling to tell him that i had a lot of pain he would blow me off.well last week i just went to see him and he failed to realize that i had colitis higher up in my colon from a ct scan from 6-2008 as well thats why the sigmoid showed it looked like that part was getting better. what is the out come of having colitis in two parts of your colon? i have been on asacol for over a year. thanks

b/g: mom has ovarian cancer, however all recent (past few months) ct-scans, x-rays, and ultrasounds show no tumors. About two months ago severe vomitting (from an oral chemo) resulted in no mobility of the gut and thus no eating or bowel movements.

question:
recent x-ray of abdoemn said:
"Positive bowel gas is noted. Organ shadows and osseous shadows are grossly negative. No significant stools are identified." Prior ct-scan (about 1 to 2 mo ago) said scan shows consistent with ileus vs sbo.

So does this sound like it is ileus and not a sbo? miralax is not really working and I’m not sure what to do to make the bowel ‘active’ again (there are no sounds). What does ‘positive bowel gas’ mean in relation to what’s going on?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Hello, I’ve had rectal bleeding now for about 9 months to a year. Sometimes black and sometimes red. I was really nervous about it so I went for a colanoscopy and endoscopy. The pictures I recieved from the doc show inflamation in the large intestine and heavy inflamation going in the small intestine (ellium) I thought it was crohns for sure but they tested 2 biopsy results came back negative for anything including colitis, cancer, crohns. The endoscopy showed extreame inflamation entering the duodenum from the stomach kind of resembling serious gastritis but no ulcer. I’m not settled at all. I test my stool with hemocult strips and know there is blood every so often. Mostly black which may be the gastritis but what can explain the kinda bright red? No hemmeroids!!! Well I dont know. It’s just kina weird concidering I havnt ate anything red in over 3 days and have frequent diarreah. Also had a ct scan which showed nothing abnormal. I’ve lost 40 lbs in 2 months and doubt its from straight stress. Nobody knows they’re body better than themselves and I know I’m not right.

Small bowel inflammation, infection?
For a week and a half, I’ve been having really bad heartburn which turned into extreme pain across my midsection WITH heartburn. I started taking protonix prescribed by my doctor when it was at first heartburn, but when the pain became severe in my abdomen, I had an upper GI test done which revealed my small intestines were inflamed, then was hospitalized (by a crappy hospital that wanted me to have a ct scan, made me drink the contrast then three hours later realized the barium I had from the upper GI in my system so a ct scan wouldn’t be possible). I have to wait until Monday to have a ct scan but when I got home from the hospital today, I had bright yellow diarrhea … could that be from either of the things I drank, or might it be small bowel bacterial overgrowth (of which yellow diarrhea is a symptom) ? The doctor only said my stool would be white-ish from the barium, nothing about yellow. Also, now I’m pretty painfully constipated, which is probably from the barium.

I’m nervous about getting another IV and drinking more of the nasty contrast on Monday, especially when it might be an infection, which a ct scan wouldn’t find. But what does this sound like?
Do you know how a bacterial infection is tested? Everybody kept ignoring me when I asked.

Thought I had a hernia, but CT scan showed bleeding in the colon and anemia. More tests in a week… Doc said maybe Crohns disease, but I don’t seem to have the classic symptoms. Could this be a lot worse?

My wife went in for a D&C on 4/15/09 due to polyps. The doctor perforated her uterus. Last week, she developed diverticulitis and there was a CT scan that showed free air in the abdomen. She was admitted into the hospital and then rushed into emergency surgery due to a complete blockage in her small intestine. Can a perforated uterus cause diverticulitis if the bowel was affected? In addition, can this also result in a blocked small intestine?

I had abdominal pain and went to the ER. They ordered a CT scan and the lady tech inserted an enema tip in my rectum for contrast. She told me "just to relax, and if I get an erection its OK because its just the enema tip massaging the prostate". When she inserted the tip she told me to cough and felt my testicles to make sure there was no hernia. Is this common practice? Has anyone had this performed before?

My father has been diagnosed with non-small carcinoma in the right lung. The doctors also found a lesion in the back bone L4 which is reported as neoplastic. A biopsy on the lung tumor was performed and confirme malignancy. On that basis they are presuming that the bone lesion is also a malignant cancer tumor. However, what seems to be strange is that the CT scan results for the rest of the right lung, the left lung, abdomin, intestines, bladder, prostate, pancreas are totally clear. His oncology blood markers are also clear. The bone scan apart from the suspected lesion at L4 is totally clean, and his blood test results are acceptable. His general health conditions are good. He was on a diet, stopped it and gained 3KGS within a span of 10 days. He simply does not show any of the symptoms of a stage IV cancer patient. The doctors said they cannot operate because of the bone lesion. Had it been only in the lungs they would. We are concerned that they might be making the wrong connection

I have been really sick and took myself to the ER. The ER doc said that the CT scan shows that I have bowel in my small intestines. I cannot find anything online about it. I was wondering if there is another term for it. The ER doc said he did not know what that meant either.

background,,I had colon cancer surgery in 2004 followed by 6 months chemo because one microscopic cancer cell was discovered in the surrounding lymph system which was completely removed along with my right ascending colon where a tumor was located, I had two subsequent CT scans which were declared clear…in Sept. 2006 I had a routine CT scan that showed 3 "spots" in my lymph system in my lower abdomen…they were unable to biopsy them so put me back on chemo for a 6 month regimen.. I had a Petscan that was inconclusive for malignacy, and 2 CT scans that showed no difference in size or location for these "spots"..after 4 months i was taken off of chemo and 4 months later had another CT scan to see what, if anything had changed…No change…Doctor cautiously has conceded that these "spots" are probably not malignacys…Has anybody here ever experienced anything similar to this?…would love to know..thanks in advance,,and sorry for being so wordy..thx.
i will be doing CT scans every 6 months for a while, plus having blood work every 4 months..

what can a small bowel follow through show that a CT scan cant?

A person very dear to me had colon cancer in 2007 and had a successful surgery to remove the tumor. She also had some months of coadyuvant therapy (chemo?). There have been further (clean) colorectal exams but I wonder which other exams are ordered in the first year or two following the surgery to guard against possible spread to other organs?
She has regular blood exams, every 6 months. Had recently (1 yr) a colonoscopy that came out good. But no CT scan which is what worries me.