EndoCa: How fast does cancer grow?

My CT scan is Monday at 11:00. It's my first follow up CT since my treatments ended last October. I had a clear PET scan right before my radiation treatments began the 1st of August. So it's been 6 months since my clear PET. I'm pretty nervous about the results but I haven't had any symptoms. This has all got me thinking about how fast cancer grows (mine was stage 1b, grade 2 as far as we know) and moves. For example when they did my hysterectomy last summer and found the cancer, I wonder how long the cancer had been there? Could it have been there for 5-10 years? Which makes me wonder if something could pop up on a CT after a clear PET 6 months ago? Does it grow or move that fast?

Georgia -

Sorry that cancerhead is showing up before your test.

I think it all depends on the kind of cancer. I firmly believe that my mom had endometrial cancer for several years before she became so anemic that she had to get have a hysterectomy.

My sister had fibroids and they unexpectedly found an aggressive form of cancer. She had her surgery in August and had been thinking of waiting until December. After her August surgery she didn't need any other treatment like chemo or rads, her gyn-onc told her that if she had waited until December it would have been an entirely different conversation.

Since yours hadn't broken through that would be a good sign you should be okay but I will send prayers.

Endometrial cancer, IF it is going to recur, tends to recur early.
Average I believe is 18months
It is rare to recur after 3 years..... So I guess that is how fast endo cancer grows.
Best wishes for a normal ct scan
HUGS
janet

	Quote:
Originally Posted by arunner Endometrial cancer, IF it is going to recur, tends to recur early. Average I believe is 18months It is rare to recur after 3 years..... So I guess that is how fast endo cancer grows. Best wishes for a normal ct scan HUGS janet

Thank you Janet. I'm sure they will look to see if there was any change in the small 2mm and 4mm lung nodule, which both the gyn/onc and rad/onc said they were sure had nothing to do with cancer (I pray they were right). My regular gynecologist at my regular visit in December told me that of all the things that might kill me, he doesn't think this will. Not really sure how he could know that. Anyway, could you explain a little bit in laymans terms what grade 2 actually means? I know grade 1 is well differentiated and grade 3 is poorly differentiated, so I assume grade 2 is in between. Just wondering what that means in a practical sense. Nervous.
Thank you so much.

Georgia:

I'm so sorry that you are so stressed but as I said before I can totally relate. My cancer was Grade 4(!) and so far no signs of recurrence. I hope that gives you some reassurance that it's going to be OK. Please post your results as soon as you get them - I will be praying for you.

Pam

Thank you Pam

Hi there Georgia
Grade 2 is somewhere between grade 1 and grade 3
Grade 1 being fairly close in appearance to the normal cell and grade 3 being very distantly related to normal cell.
It is hard to be reassuring in this whole business.
Usually grade 2 is lumped with grade 1, when that is important.
There are many factors that determine a persons prognosis and grade is only one factor
Stage is another very important factor and yours is lower.
The other really important factor is that you have had fairly significant treatment, which factors against the higher risk factors, keep that in mind.
janet

Thanks. So I guess that means thar the aggressiveness of grade 2 is somewhere between 1 and 3. So I guess it would be possible to go from a clear scan to a bad scan in 6 months? I'm praying that doesn't happen for me or any of us, but I guess it's very possible it can grow that fast.

Georgia -

Based on this fact sheet from the American Cancer Society if you had adenocarcinoma it sounds like a grade 2 tumor is still concerned a slow growing cancer.

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/Endomet...metrial-cancer


This also indicates that grade is not a good single indicator of whether the cancer would spread or not:

http://www.wcn.org/articles/types_of...s/staging.html


Breath deeply, you have every hope and chance that things will still be all clear.

To give you a comparison my ct scan noted a metinsary (probably spelled that one wrong) lymph node as 1.0 cm by 1.2cm - even being measured by cm instead of mm they said it was not too concerning. Everday fluctuations where the lymph nodes are reacting to normal things (other than cancer) could explain that sizing is what I was told.
Good luck with your scan!