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- | ===== Advice to a sarcoidosis patient with swollen lymph glands ===== | ||
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- | As we've explained, lymph nodes enlarge due to infection, inflammation or cancer. You already have biopsy-verified sarcoidosis, | ||
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- | Because of that, good, well-meaning doctors look for other explanations for sarcoidosis symptoms such as your inflammed lymph nodes. Add to that the fact that you have been losing weight (which is consistent with our experiences with the MP) and how litigious our society is in medical malpractice cases concerning missed cancer diagnoses, and you can see why your doctor is motivated to rule out cancer. | ||
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- | You alone can determine how much you are willing to expend time and energy to be poked, prodded and scanned to rule out cancers or any other differential diagnosis your physicians may suspect. But that testing can be expensive, time consuming and lead to nowhere. And you are the only one who knows how much of this you need before you are reassured. | ||
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- | Part of being an active member of your medical team sometimes means reassuring the doctor. Sarcoidosis is a scary disease for physicians, which is part of why they tend to get several specialists involved and do lots of testing. And they tend to want to do that whether the patient is stable of getting worse. | ||
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- | Sometimes a simple nap or brief rest can ease the discomfort of immunopathology symptoms. Check out our page on [[home: | ||
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- | I understand now that you were asking would granuloma be found if you had a lymph node biopsied? We aren't all-knowing, | ||
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- | The NHLBI advises that only one biopsy is necessary for sarcoidosis. But like I said, doctors get nervous and as long as the patient is willing, they can go on doing additional biopsies as time goes on. | ||
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- | It sounds like your concern is: "What are the chances the lymphadenopathy is now cancer and not sarcoidosis?" | ||
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- | Physicians may continue to be concerned about cancer, even when they have a biopsy-verified diagnosis of sarcoidosis. The best things you can do - to prepare to discuss this with your doctors are: | ||
- | - read how doctors diagnose the [[http:// | ||
- | - read through the radiologist' | ||
- | - search PubMed to see if there are any similar reports of this in sarcoidosis (for example, [[http:// | ||
- | - evaluate Bill's progress thus far on the MP and make a list that you can share (and maybe leave) with the doctors. | ||
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- | All these will help your dicussion be more productive. You have to understand that doctors have more education and experience with cancers than with sarcoidosis. Since YOU have more experience with sarcoidosis, | ||
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- | Finally, sharing your own observations of progress and explaining the immunopathology to them again should ease concerns and allow you to opt for a " | ||
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- | You can also search our website for other helpful information such as the information about PET scans in this thread on sarcoidosis. | ||
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- | //**Belinda Fenter**// | ||
- | </ | ||