Cognitive loss patients should not undergo lung surgery?

Posted by stanley110 @stanley110, Jun 13, 2023

My relative has a history of colon cancer and now has a benign nodule in the right lung that is metabolically active. Age 82. Likely to enter dementia in a year or two.or three. Doctor insists the nodule not be surgically removed because anesthesia & surgery will provoke dementia onset.

Is this correct? Even with minimally invasive surgery?

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My 83-year old father-in-law already has moderately bad dementia, but is about to get a cancerous kidney removed. The local anesthesiologist raised the same concern about __possibly__ making the dementia worse and wanted no part of it. But he's got cardiac clearance (another issue) and anesthesia clearance at a more specialized university hospital and a date already set for his surgery.

So, I guess it's a legitimate concern, but worth taking somewhere else for a specialist's second opinion.

I hope you'll post back here if you learn anything more. Best of luck!

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@markymarkfl

My 83-year old father-in-law already has moderately bad dementia, but is about to get a cancerous kidney removed. The local anesthesiologist raised the same concern about __possibly__ making the dementia worse and wanted no part of it. But he's got cardiac clearance (another issue) and anesthesia clearance at a more specialized university hospital and a date already set for his surgery.

So, I guess it's a legitimate concern, but worth taking somewhere else for a specialist's second opinion.

I hope you'll post back here if you learn anything more. Best of luck!

Jump to this post

I will post back anything I learn,

Thanks for your comment.

REPLY
@markymarkfl

My 83-year old father-in-law already has moderately bad dementia, but is about to get a cancerous kidney removed. The local anesthesiologist raised the same concern about __possibly__ making the dementia worse and wanted no part of it. But he's got cardiac clearance (another issue) and anesthesia clearance at a more specialized university hospital and a date already set for his surgery.

So, I guess it's a legitimate concern, but worth taking somewhere else for a specialist's second opinion.

I hope you'll post back here if you learn anything more. Best of luck!

Jump to this post

I hope your father-in-law has an uneventful and successful surgery.
I will try to learn more about this and report back what I find.
I have a wild idea that perhaps chemotherapy could render the nodule not metabolically active or even destroy the benign nodule.

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What about radiation of the nodule?

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Radiation does not require anesthesia?

I did not know that.

Thanks for the idea. I will followup on it.

REPLY
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