Pathology Results

Dr. Jalkut called at the end of the day today with the pathology results of Elvira.  It was cancer.  It was a type of cancer called clear cell renal carcinoma.  It was staged at T1b.  Basically that means it was greater than 4cm across but less than 7 cm across (just barely) and was contained to just the kidney. There is a only a 10% chance that it will occur again.

As I said before - kidney cancer is generally resistant to chemo and radiation.  The bone scan and pulmonary CT have not shown a spread to anywhere else - so removing the kidney in it's entirety is the treatment of choice.  If it had spread to anything beyond the kidney - like to lymph nodes, etc... there might be some discussion of additional treatment in the form of chemo, but since there is no evidence of that we will just monitor things for the next few years.  It is widely believed that if you can make it 5 years without re-occurence your chances of it re-ocurring at all drop drastically.

So I see Dr. Jalkut 2 weeks post-op to check incisions, etc...  Then again at 6 weeks post-op where we will discuss the plan for monitoring.  The monitoring will be via x-rays and ct scans.  The first couple of years it will be more often - then will stretch out to every 6 months and then to once a year.

So I'm torn.  Of course, not happy that it's cancer, but glad that we got it all (or so it appears).  So does this mean I'm a cancer survivor?