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Early Staging Process

Posted by lulu3780 @lulu3780, 2 days ago

Before my first endoscopy, I went in for a gastric ultrasound. They just called me back and told me that everything looked fine except for I had a fatty liver and a few gallstones. I specifically asked if everything else looked OK and she said that they didn’t see anything that would cause concern. I also went in for my endoscopy with ultrasound and CT scan WITHOUT contrast yesterday. The endo ultrasound detected a 5 cm mass in my esophagus and a couple of nearby lymph nodes. I’m still waiting on the CT scan results tomorrow. I will be meeting with my thoracic surgeon to go over them with me and hopefully start a treatment plan.

The nurse that gave me the gastric ultrasound results said my pancreas, stomach, liver, and gallbladder all look ok.

So I guess my questions are…
Are the results from the gastric ultrasound a good thing that maybe it hasn’t spread to anywhere else?
And why wouldn’t they have ordered a CT scan WITH contrast?

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s6819103 | @s6819103 | 2 days ago

This was the same with my dad. They said gastric ultrasound was fine. Found his on the endoscopy and confirmed with the CT. I think the ultrasound endoscopy is the best view so CT will most likely be the same. Petscan confirmed same results as CT

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pliddle | @pliddle | 19 hours ago

I'm not qualified to offer much of an answer to your question, but with respect to staging I suspect you will be catagorized Stage 3 given the lymph node involvement. However, there may be follow-up relative to the nodes to confirm whether there is active infiltration or whether they are simply "lighting up"/reacting to the primary tumor, which was/is the case with me. I suspect you will be going down the same treatment path as me--chemo and/or radiation. The latter has been increasingly debilitating for me--fatigue. Best wishes.

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1 reply
lulu3780 | @lulu3780 | 14 hours ago
In reply to @pliddle "I'm not qualified to offer much of an answer to your question, but with respect to..." + (show)
@pliddle

I'm not qualified to offer much of an answer to your question, but with respect to staging I suspect you will be catagorized Stage 3 given the lymph node involvement. However, there may be follow-up relative to the nodes to confirm whether there is active infiltration or whether they are simply "lighting up"/reacting to the primary tumor, which was/is the case with me. I suspect you will be going down the same treatment path as me--chemo and/or radiation. The latter has been increasingly debilitating for me--fatigue. Best wishes.

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I was diagnosed yesterday stage 3. The lymph node/nodes in question are celiac. So I’m mentally preparing myself for chemo and/or radiation. I have to wait until May 5 for PET scan as there wasn’t any place in my area that could do it sooner

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