Lung cancer

Hello my mother has been diagnosed with lung cancer that they feel has metatasized to the brain.  She had two small lesion behind each ear located on the somewhat outer region.  The doctor recommends surgery although risky it is not so bad due to the outer location.  He also says that brain tumors dont respond well to medication and radiation may shrink or remove tumor they most likely will come back. Please anyone with knowledge on this topic will be helpful.  We wont know the stage of the cancer or type for a few days.  Thanks

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  Whatever type of lung cancer your mother has (whether small cell or non small cell variety), she is in an advanced stage because of the brain metastases (was this documented by CT scan?) and what I assume to be metastases to lymph nodes behind the ears (post-auricular nodes). The primary treatment for brain metastases coming from the lungs is still radiotherapy.  Although there is a chance that the brain tumor will come back after radiation treatment, doing the radiation still confers a survival benefit and should be done if your mother indeed has brain metastases.  As for the  post-auricular lymph node metastases, I'm not sure that surgical removal is going to be beneficial, since the disease seems to be widespread at this point, and removal of those nodes will not control the spread of the cancer.  Chemotherapy is, in my opinion, a better choice for treating those ear node metastases.

[leelee1968]

Thank you for replying .  My mother has just clarified that her two tumors on her brain are located on the front base of the brain not behind the ear lobes .  Does that change anything???

[Fernando Roque, MD]

Hi.  Was a CT scan of those tumors done? From what you posted, it is not clear to me if those tumors are in the brain itself or just adjacent to it.  Is it possible for you to post the exact CT results if these are available? That would help a lot in clarifying things.

[leelee1968]

I know she had a ct scan done, but I seems to be getting conflicting explainations from the dr. I will ask him tomorrow if th tumors are in the brain or just adjacent to it.  Also i will try to get an exact copy for the results. Thank you so much for your insight.