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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Suggest Treatment For Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

my husband has a hart problem and he was a soker before and he has copd from that but ina catscan they see a spot my question to you is whether he should go to rdiation ad battle the side effect becouse thay can not do a byopsy do the hy risdk he is so they think it may be cancer or an infection becouse it has grown to 10 mm. in 2 years he is going to be 84 acording to the pulmary DR. he can refuse but i am thinking that if the side effect is not so bad maybe this will shrink the infection
Mon, 20 Apr 2015
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Pulmonologist,  's  Response
Thanks for your question on HCM.
I can understand your husband's situation and problem.
One should not start radiotherapy only on the basis of CT scan report.
You need to have diagnosis of malignancy before starting radiotherapy.
Since he is smoker, possibility of malignancy is high for this nodule.
But we need to have tissue diagnosis first.
Biopsy is not the only tool to detect malignancy.
Rather for detection of early malignant lung nodule, go for bronchoscopy and BAL (bronchoalveolar lavage) analysis to detect malignant cells.
You can go for PET scan also.
So first diagnose malignancy and then start radiotherapy.
Ask him to quit smoking as soon as possible.
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Suggest Treatment For Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Thanks for your question on HCM. I can understand your husband s situation and problem. One should not start radiotherapy only on the basis of CT scan report. You need to have diagnosis of malignancy before starting radiotherapy. Since he is smoker, possibility of malignancy is high for this nodule. But we need to have tissue diagnosis first. Biopsy is not the only tool to detect malignancy. Rather for detection of early malignant lung nodule, go for bronchoscopy and BAL (bronchoalveolar lavage) analysis to detect malignant cells. You can go for PET scan also. So first diagnose malignancy and then start radiotherapy. Ask him to quit smoking as soon as possible.