results of PET scan

hello..linda bliss here i hope you guys can help me hiya allan hiya tim and hi to veryone else for those who dont know me here is dx: sept 99 i found lump left breast lumpectomy oct 99 clear margins, stage 2, invasive ductal carcinoma, ER and PR positive, HER2 negative Axill node dissection..29 lymph nodes taken and 2 were cancerous. 4 cycles of A/C and 33 rad treatments all ending june 2000. since 2000 i have been seeing the onc and surg every 3 months and have blood work taken for tumor markers and they have been normal up til now..they are elevated to 100. ok..so the onc says have CT scan MRI and PET scan. had them all and he just called me and told me that the PET scan showed something positive on my lung and right away i think CANCER again. i am so distraught i started looking at my medical book and i dont even know what to look for. my husband and i will see the onc on wed but in the meantime i REALLY NEED someone to answer my post and help me. what`s the survival rate..we have 2 young children.... god i am only 50. anyone else here have this happen to them.. i know breast cancer can lead to mets but after 4 years. i think i have to blame myself cuz i stopped the tamoxifen last year and quit smoking 3 months ago. 1 pack lasted 3 days. ok i needed help 4 years ago and i need help again
PLEASE PLEASE??? THANK YOU LOVE LINDA

One step at a time Linda! PET scans find all sorts of things. The lump on your lung might have been there for decades, and it might have no connection with the breast, it probably isn`t even malignant. Only a biopsy can tell.
If you really want to know, -if- in the worst case it did turn out to be a metastasis of your old breast cancer then the long term survival rate is no more than 5%. But it still most likely isn`t that. It could just as well be a primary lung cancer (perhaps smoking related), which would probably account for the markers too. I don`t know what the recovery rate is for that but it`s better than for mets. If it turns out to be that, then think yourself lucky that you were looking for mets and so caught it early.
Studies have positively showed no link between smoking and bc.

It is easy for me to say this but please try not to panic.
My wife had a scan a couple of weeks ago. It showed what was described as a `hot spot` that could have been a metastatic tumour. We were both terrified. Our oncologist had to consult with radiologists to get a clear diagnosis and it turned out to be some sort of harmless bone scar from an injury that my wife sustained in a car crash several years ago.
From my limited understanding of scans, I believe that they can often show false positives. I very much hope this will be the case for you. Our oncologist told us this and suggested that this made radiological scans quite limited in their usefulness.
Again, this is easy for me to say because I have not had to face what you are facing but try not to let fear blight your life. My wife is having hormonal treatment for a recurrence of her breast cancer. It seems to me that the worst thing for her is the fear - particularly late at night and early in the morning. Are you or your husband in touch with any support groups that might be able to help you?
If you feel able, please let us know how things turn out for you.
Best wishes and good luck to you and to your husband,

ok several questions ok??? and i am full of them just like i was 4 years ago 1..how do you describe mets and how do you know it is mets ok and listen to this report from the PET scan: there is evidence of multiple areas of increased metabolic activity below and above the diaphram. a large area of increased metabolic activity is noted in the right paracarinal region..appears to be lobulated. another area near the midline is in the supradiaphragmatic region. a right paravertabral lesion is noted and a right paratracheal lesion is noted. a small lesion near the left apox is seen. evidence of para-aortic lymph nodes below the renal hilum on both sides..( assuming this is the adrenal glands) ok tim what do you make of this this and did i read you correctly..only 5% survival rate omg i refuse to give into this and why is this attacking me now i can hope and pray that this is all benign. i know i will have to have biopsy of adrenal glands and prob lung god help me any thoughts??? love linda

you were a small child. That causes scar tissue on the lung, and it also causes a positive reaction to the current TB skin test.
My dad has melanoma and has been in remission for a year. He called me up, distraught, because there was a spot on his lung. I just happen to have his inoculation record from when he was a child (he was throwing stuff away and it looked too useful to toss) and sho `nuff, he had a killed TB inoculation in August of 1939. I mailed it to him; he took that in to his oncologist, who gave him a big grin and said, "Great, I`ll check you again in six months but I`ll bet it`s your TB shot, not a metastasis."
I only know about this because a lot of Asians had that inoculation up until the 1970s, and when I had to hire new nurses, (generally cute young things from Japan wanting to experience the seedy side of Hawaii) they would show positive to the skin test, argh, they they had to go have a chest X-ray, argh, and we would always panic until they brought in their proof of inoculation.
BTW, as far as we know now, that inoculation doesn`t work. It just scars up your lungs and made your mom feel better back in the `40s. There still is no reliable shot for TB, just slightly better treatments. Don`t get it. It`s a pain.
Well, I`ve certainly burbled on enough.

on coming, or else when a biopsy says so. How do you describe it? - you describe it as a clone of the original primary cancer growing in other organs of the body, eg cancerous breast tissue growing in the lung, that is stage IV cancer. Strictly it is a distant metastasis. Local recurrences can be local metastases, as are affected lymph nodes, but they aren`t nearly so dangerous, and they aren`t what we mean when we say `mets` colloquially, we should really say stage IV.
Stage IV is I am afraid generally terminal. Although the survival -times- are getting better all the time, most people who get mets still die -with- it, although not necessarily -of- it. A few do go into long term remission but that is quite rare, as I said, no more than 5%.
Right now work on the assumption that its something else, and what you are looking for is a diagnosis. There is plenty of time to deal with the mets scare if it happens. That way your mind is preparing for the possible shock in the background, but you aren`t dwelling on it. Cross the bridge if and when you come to it.

I found the lump in Sept 96, (Stage II, no nodes) and in March 99 the lung scan showed suspicious spots. They did a broncoscopy (spelling?) to get some tissue for testing. It was mets to lungs. It`s 2003 and I`m still surviving.
Hopefully, this is not even cancer. I`ll think positive thoughts for you. i hope you guys can help me hiya allan hiya tim and hi to veryone else for those who dont know me here is dx: sept 99 i found lump left breast lumpectomy oct 99 clear margins, stage 2, invasive ductal carcinoma, ER and PR positive, HER2 negative Axill node dissection..29 lymph nodes taken and 2 were cancerous. 4 cycles of A/C and 33 rad treatments all ending june 2000. since 2000 i have been seeing the onc and surg every 3 months and have blood work taken for tumor markers and they have been normal up til now..they are elevated to 100. ok..so the onc says have CT scan MRI and PET scan. had them all and he just called me and told me that the PET scan showed something positive on my lung and right away i think CANCER again. i am so distraught i started looking at my medical book and i dont even know what to look for. my husband and i will see the onc on wed but in the meantime i REALLY NEED someone to answer my post and help me. what`s the survival rate..we have 2 young children.... god i am only 50. anyone else here have this happen to them.. i know breast cancer can lead to mets but after 4 years. i think i have to blame myself cuz i stopped the tamoxifen last year and quit smoking 3 months ago. 1 pack lasted 3 days. ok i needed help 4 years ago and i need help again
PLEASE PLEASE??? THANK YOU LOVE LINDA

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Hi Dee, what kind of treatment did you have? How large were the `spots`?