Im new here. My brother, age 25, has just been diagnosed with colon cancer and its spread into his lymph nodes. Can anyone tell me what i need to expect and what he needa to expect from treatment ect?
Welcome to the forum but I am very sorry to hear he is having to face treatment when he is so young !
Is it in his lymph nodes near his primary tumour as they are normally removed by the surgeon when the are removing the primary ! If it is lymph nodes that are a distance from the primary it may change the treatment protocol.
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/bowel-cancer This booklet gives you an overview of the different approaches used to treat the tumour . I really depends on the location of the tumour . Rectal tumours frequently have some radiotherapy /chemotherapy before surgery where some areas of the colon may go straight to surgery !
The team decides what is the best approach to take with each individual patient . The thing to remember bowel cancer caught early has a lot of treatment options .
After they have gathered information together and given him his plan it is a great idea to get some insight into the various aspects of his care as you will be able to support him better !
You will frequently see people here saying the surgeon removed twenty lymph nodes and a few were found to have cancer in them !I think they literally strip the surrounding lymph nodes as long as they are located near the tumour !
Great your hear getting informed as not only can we support you but you will be a great help to him !
Thank you! His lymph nodes in his abdomin and neck are inflamed. They said they arent operating now, theyre going to start with aggressive chemo to start with.
Thats the route my mum went down and whilst it took a mind shift to go straight to chemo in hindsight it was a good plan as it gets to work systemically hitting all affected cells It’s a good plan to bring the disease under control !
Has he got any information on his cell type yet ?
After my mum had chemo she did get surgery and the lymph nodes that were reactionary on the scan prior to treatment did not have any live cancer cells in them . Here we’re near her tumour but she had a spread to her liver . You can read her full story by clicking on my user name but it helps to see some of the approaches used !
I have included this thread on chemo care as it will give you some ideas on what he might encounter and how you can practically help him !
As bowel cancer is quite common it benefits from having a lot of different chemo options the oncologist can use ! The cell type dictates what options are used !
My mum had Oxaliplatin intravenously then two weeks of oral chemo then a rest week before starting again !
Whilst it was tough it was also very effective so I wish your brother every success .
We have an appointment with the oncologist on monday to discuss everything in more detail, so we'll know more then. Ill have a read about your moms journey! Thank you!
