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Anxiety is ongoing
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Anxiety is ongoing

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Anxiety is ongoing

  • Post
    • January 21, 2023 at 8:38 am
    anxietyalldaylong
    Participant
      Hello there ! For those who don’t know me, I had been diagnosed roughly 2 years ago with nodular melanoma on my chest, which quickly progressed to stage IV and was put on pembrolizumab. I have been on this treatment for around a year now.

      My recent scan showed response of my lung mets (some of them completely disappeared) and continued response on my bone and subcutaneous mets.

      However there are new bilateral and fairly large ground glass opacities with some of them showing crazy paving pattern (that’s what the report says) on both my lungs, which have a low suv uptake (1.7). I am so worried that these are new mets !

      I am currently asymptomatic, but I noticed that my LDH has been gradually rising in the past 3 months, but is still within normal limits. I worry because is it possible that these are mets and they didn’t show increased uptake ? My onc says it’s probably pneumonitis from a past viral infection or from the treatment itself and wants to wait because I have no symptoms.

      Please any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

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    • Replies
        • January 21, 2023 at 2:06 pm
        Bubbles
        Participant
          I know ANYTHING showing up on a scan is worrying. However, like your onc relayed – findings described as having a ground glass appearance is almost always pneumonitis (irritation in the lungs). It can be caused by many things including viruses – but immunotherapy (esp after a year!!) is a common culprit!

          celeste

          • January 23, 2023 at 3:14 am
          anxietyalldaylong
          Participant
            Thank you so much for your reply Celeste ! I really hope it’s nothing because I am really scared to leave my husband and kids behind !

            Is it generally a usual thing that happens during immunotherapy ? Shouldn’t it have already shown in the first months ? Why after one year ? And also is it possible for the LDH to rise for another reason ? I though that this is indicative of recurrence along with the lung lesions…

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