I’m begging for someone’s help on this diagnosis, which is very similar to SassyTazzzy’s.

It’s for my mom, who is 74 y/o. She's a highly education woman, who thinks she is this “spring chicken” that is “full of life”. Just recently, she purchased a sports car, which she races up/down the street burning rubber with our next door neighbor who is 21 y/o. My mom is my life…she is my best friend…and she’s all I have. If anything were to happen to “Jet Set Betty”, it would be a tremendous loss to not only me, but the neighborhood kids.

On 8/18/07, she went to the hospital for a Cat Scan of the abdomen and pelvic area, due to problems stemming from back surgery in 2006. Mom was a smoker for many years, but quit in her early 40’s. Trying to research this problem has been complicated, as I'm getting mixed information on whether a non-calcified vs. calcified nodules are cancerous.

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CT OF THE ABDOMEN
CLINIAL INDICATION: Possible Lymphadenopathy

COMPARISON: CT of 5/18/05 and pelvic ultrasound 3/7/07

ABDOMEN FINDINGS:

A 5mm pleural based non-calcified nodule seen in the anterior right lung base and middle lobe. Some linear bands of atelectasis are present in both lungs.

The liver, gallbladder, spleen, pancreas and adrenals are normal. Bilateral renal cortical scars are present as well as multiple small hypo-attenuating lesions all stable from prior exam. A 6.7 cm cyst in upper pole right kidney is stable from prior exam.

No adenopathy or ascites is present.

The aortic wall in the infrarenal location appear slightly thickened of uncertain significance.

PELVIS FINDINGS:

No adenopathy or ascites is present. Uterus is absent. The adnexa are unremarkable. There is sigmoid diverticulosis without diverticulitis. Patient has multi-level laminectomy changes.

ABDOMEN IMPRESSIONS:

1. No evidence of lymphadenopathy.

2. Small right lower lobe lung nodule. In the absence of a history of risk factors for pulmonary neoplasm, follow-up CT of the thorax in 6 months is recommended. If the patient has risk factors, follow-up in 3 months is suggested.

PELVIS IMPRESSION:

1. Diverticulosis without Diveticulitis.

2. No evidence of adenopathy.

Okay,

She seems in good health and the diagnosis does not appear cancerous (to answer your question, cancer nodules can be calcified or non-calcified, it depends).

Your mother has a large cyst on her kidney that is normal for her and has not changed since her last exam-thats good.

It appears that she has had surgery on both her kidneys OR there has been some disease in the past that has scarred her kidneys-again nothing to worry about as there are no changes.

Her aorta is enlarged slightly which the radiologist says is unknown as to why-however it seems unimportant to him as well.

The purpose of the CT scan was not for her back it was to determine the situation associated with her adrenals/kidneys. The doctor has also seen that your mother has significant disk damage to many of her intervertrabral disks-something that you already know, but again, they seem uninteresting (disease-wise) to the doctors.

Your mother has some bulges in her intestine, that again are non-symptomatic (she doesn't feel she has any problem or inflammation of the area either).


Id say that your mother is in REALLY good condition apart from her sore back and possible sore kidney areas.

Kind regards