Pluerodesis procedure

pacman9394 · New User Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 1

My mom is 74 yrs old has stage 4 lung cancer with metastasis. My mom was diagnosed in December 2006. Her lung cancer was originally spread from her breast cancer which is in remission 14 years ago. She has a Pleurx Catheter in her chest for 5 months. She drained 160 ML everyday. The doctor had done a Pluerodesis procedure because the fluids is not stopping and tend to be increasing. She stays for in the hosipital for 10 days for this procedure. She has cough intensive and feeling more shortness of breath after the Pluerodesis procedure. She feel much worst than before the Pluerodesis procedure. She is going down because the cancer is just kicks in or is this a part of the side effects for the Pluerodesis procedure? I am so regretted she had the procedure done because she feels much better before the Pluerodesis.

pbj11 · Site Admin Joined: 12 May 2007 Posts: 1138

Hi and welcome Pacman,

Quote: She stays for in the hosipital for 10 days for this procedure. She has cough intensive and feeling more shortness of breath after the Pluerodesis procedure.

I'm sorry this is happening to your Mom. From what I understood, there is some risk of SOB with having the pleural lining adhered to the lung, because it lessens the ability of the lung to expand as fully as before. While it seals off the space for fluid, it also takes that space away for the lung to expand like it did before, when breathing without any fluid build-up. That was what we were told when considering pleurodesis. It's a tough decision to make whether to do this procedure, but most doctor's commonly recommend doing it and most patients don't question it. Frankly, that is why my husband never wanted to do pleurodesis. (He also didn't want another chest tube or hospital stay.) He was very SOB to begin with, even when he didn't have pleural effusion, and didn't want to chance that this might make it worse. He filled quite often with fluid, but opted to continue having thoracentesis done. We were lucky to have doctor's who were willing to go along with his wishes, because he handled thoracentesis quite well.

It really all depends on the particular circumstances for each patient. Just to clarify for other's who are reading this post, my husband's breathing was always an issue, even during times with no pleural effusion. He was on oxygen 24/7 and his lungs were very compromised from a heavy amount of cancer, mets, thickening, scarring, and emphysema. Most patient's lungs are not this messed up and usually do well with a pleurodesis procedure.

Hopefully this is just temporary for your Mom and she'll bounce back as the days go by.

I truly understand how frustrating this is for you and your Mom. Seeing someone who is SOB is extremely painful emotionally. You want to make it better, but only time and healing may help.

Let's pray that she mends well and she makes the adjustment to this change.

Hugs,
PBJ
_________________
Husband diagnosed with NSCLC Stage IV. (Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer) Fought & lived 2 1/2 years with multiple lines of treatment.

Post describing our battle: http://cancerforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=7026&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

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