Is this cancer a secondary?

[VivaLeBeaver]

My dad Has been poorly for 3 years with what the drs thought was vasculitis. Initially 3 years ago he had low dose chemo for the vasculitis. Hes never seemed to get better even with lots of drugs and his symptoms never really fitted vasculitis.

3 weeks ago he was diagnosed with non hodgkins lymphoma and started chemo straight away.

Went to see him today and he says he just been told that he now has lung cancer as well.

3 weeks ago they were telling him the good thing about NHL is that it stays in the lymph system and doesn't spread. Now he has lung cancer.

I assumed the lung cancer is a secondary cancer. But google says that secondary cancers are caused by chemo. Am I getting the terminology wrong? I thought a primary cancer was the original cancer and a secondary a cancer in a new site that has spread from the primary?

If secondary cancers are only caused by chemo then could it have been from the low grade chemo 3 years ago.

Or is it possible the lung cancer is the main cancer, but they just found the NHL first?

You need to know if the lung tumour is lymphoma. Lymphoma can spread beyond the lymph system into basically any organ. Chemo does not cause cancer. Secondary tumours can appear after chemo just because the chemo has not been totally effective and the tumour has spread. With lymphoma it has less 'primary' and 'secondary' aspects as it is often in more than one location at diagnosis. I think you need to speak to your dad's oncologist for clarification on the type of tumour in the lung: NHL or another tumour.

Hi there - sorry you're going through this. I don't think anyone is really going to be able to answer this but your father's doctors but I'll try to help a bit.

NHL can involve the lungs so it could be the lymphoma (still potential for cure even if spread outside the lymphatic system). It could be a separate ie second primary cancer within the lung. It is not unusual for people to be diagnosed with two different cancers at once particularly smokers.

Some people do develop cancers as a result of chemotherapy but this is very rare and tends to be blood cancers rather than solid tumours such as lung cancer and so I think this is the much less like scenario of the three.

Please ask to speak to one of your dad's medical team to clarify the situation for you after the weekend.

Thanks for the info, that's helpful. I didn't realise that the lung tumours could still be NHL.

He had already been told that the NHL is terminal as its a rare form, mantel cell NHL. Plus a mutated version.

I'll talk to dad more next week, had dd with me today so didn't want to discuss it much.