A metastasis has been found in the abdominal wall. How can primary cancer be found?

Question

Hello doctor,

My mother-in-law has a small cancer in the epigastric abdominal wall with adenocarcinoma, metastatic. We are carrying out further tests including PET-CT scan, endoscopy, colonoscopy, CBC, and all the CA tests, but no primary cancer was found. Now, what will I do?

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I have gone through the reports of your mother-in-law (attachment removed to protect patient identity). It looks like they have not yet completed the full work up. Biopsy from the abdominal wall nodule shows metastatic adenocarcinoma. So now, they must do upper GI endoscopy, gynecological per speculum examination, and ultrasound thyroid to find out any suspicious lesion.

You have not attached the biopsy report. The biopsy specimen must be stained with immunohistochemical markers. There are different markers and each type of tumor has a specific marker. So, the positive-stained marker will identify the primary tumor in most of the cases.

In case everything fails to find the primary tumor, the next step is to check the genomic profile to find the primary cancer.

For more information consult a medical oncologist online.