[Joan M]

Courtney,

I'm sorry to hear about the progression in the lungs.

I've had a lung met which was removed by a wedge resection in 2007. It recurred a year later and I treated it with radiofrequency ablation (RFA). I also had a brain met treated by surgery and radiation. These procedures have allowed me to avoid chemo thus far, since the surgeries, RFA and radiation have made me NED each time. I've been taking only Herceptin since my bc advanced from stage IIb to IV.

Even though I did not have good look with the lung RFA, I still recommend checking it out. I know of other cases where there were no problems. In my case, a fungal ball (mycetoma or aspergilloma), from a common fungus that grows in the soil (aspergillus), grew in the cavity in my lung left by the RFA. But this was a rare occurrence, and the interventional radiation doc wants to do a case study on it.

The fungus eventually caused PET/CT scans to light up, and then I started coughing up blood. This lead to a thoracotomy for another wedge resection in July to stop the bleeding, and the surgery really knocked me on my butt. It was not like the minimally invasive lung surgery (VATS) I had the first time. I really met my match.

However, I was fortunate that there was no cancer, only the fungal ball. And now when I garden I'm supposed to wear a mask.

But, I'd do RFA again in the lung.

I also feel this way about RFA and cryoablation for the liver mets, even though that doesn't apply to me. If a bc patient doesn't have mets elsewhere, it makes sense to me not to stress the liver more by adding chemos that filter through the liver. It's like the liver enzymes are reacting to both the mets and the chemo.

Whichever treatment you choose, I hope it really zaps those mets.

Joan