Expert: Claes-Gustaf Nordquist, M.D. - 11/19/2006

Question
My husband was diagnosed with colon cancer / Signet ring cell adenocarcinoma in June of this year.  He has been receiving chemo since July 5th.  He was initially told that he would have between 8 and 16 months to live.  He refused to continue with this oncologist and found another one that told him that he was already cured because the tumor was removed at the time of discovery.  I have been completely confused for the past 5 months.  His oncologist tells me that he will not give a prognosis because he doesn't not know how long anyone has to live including me.  He said I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, so how does he know how long my husband has to live....  My husband is completely satisfied with his doctor, and never asks any questions.  When someone is diagnosed with "Stage 3-C signet ring cell adenocarcinoma" what is your opinion on the prognosis?  He had 16 lymph nodes removed and 15 were positive.  The tumor that was removed was 12 cm in diameter.  A PET Scan showed no other organs effected.  Any information you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you..Julia  

Answer
Unfortunately his oncologist is correct! If you are dealing with a large number of patients you can with SOME certainty predict how many percent of them that are going to survive for a particular time. But here we are dealing with a single case and statistics and probability can then no longer be applied in the same way. Well he is definitely a stage 3 case which means that his future is uncertain. I can not predict it better than that. However no one can promise a cancer patient like your husband that he is cured due to the uncertainty of his prognosis! Though the PET scan did not show any signs that his cancer has spread, it is unfortunately still possible that it has but that the daughter tumours are yet too small for detection. I'm sorry I can not give you a better answer than this!